this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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People always say math when they just mean arithmetic.
As long as we aren't talking about maths, then I'm good
Agreed. Most people don't realize arithmetic is actually a form of geography, and not math. True story.
For the general public that's a distinction without a difference
Isn't arithmetic just a subset of math? So they're using a more generic descriptor.
It's also better for brevity.
Yeah but for those of us who actually studied math, it's silly. Rote arithmetic barely qualifies, you hardly even see actual numbers in math except for a handful of single digit integers for exponents, subscripts, coefficients, etc.
It's like calling a golf cart a "sports car".
Imagine being the guy who gatekeeps maths.
I'm not sure you understand my point.
how many people in the general population have mathematics degrees?
1.3 of undergrad degrees are in mathematics, and only about 40% of USA adults have a bachelors or higher, so about .053% of Americans have math degrees, or we can say 99.47% do not. so out of 2000 people, only 1 of them has a math degree.
This guy arithmetics!
The number of people who drive sports cars is also quite small, but that wouldn't make it less silly for the general population to use the term "sports car" exclusively to refer to golf carts.
Sadly yes
I say maths
I say arithmetics
Perhaps they expected the server to use geometry to come up with the answer...
Here we use the metric, d(x, y) = |x - y|, to calculate the distance between points x, y in Q.