Real World Raises Worries

It’s great to have students experience mathematics in the real world (Students See Science, Math in Real Life, May 3). As a math teacher, I know that answering the question, “When will we ever use this?” is sometimes difficult.

Unfortunately, though, the students in the story are having a “real world” experience involving how to more efficiently kill people as they deal with missile launch simulations. It’s too bad the students weren’t exposed to the mathematics concerned with environmental improvement, business efficiency, infrastructure design and other aspects of life that improve the human condition rather than annihilate it.

I hope the students realized that those missile launches weren’t “just a Nintendo game” as one student described it.

BRAD NELSON

Newbury Park