Intermediate Algebra

When a book is titled "Algebra", it's always a bit ambiguous whether that means "high school algebra" or "abstract algebra". I clicked on this link thinking it was about group/field/ring/etc theory and wondering what an 'intermediate' treatment of those topics would look like.

Sorry for the rant but as a math lover this is terrible. In my experience "algebra 2" is taught for multiple years and is in my opinion the most boring soul crushing math I was taught. And I say taught because its forced into you with very few interesting observations and thinking. It focuses on memorizing formula's a procedures, which while these things have there applications I don't consider someone who can say y=mx+b or the a^2+b^2=c^2 knows much about math or more importantly engages with things in a mathematical way. I think there is this focus to produce calculators when you want thinkers and maybe and I hope this has changed in the last 10 years (age 24) but I feel like the American middle school level produces bad math habits and skills wrapped around solving test questions instead of thinking.

Why are the author (John Redden) and acknowledgements removed from the github.io version?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;scholar.flatworldknowledge.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;4372&#x2F;fwk-redden-ata" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;scholar.flatworldknowledge.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;4372&#x2F;fwk-redden...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;open.umn.edu&#x2F;opentextbooks&#x2F;textbooks&#x2F;134" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;open.umn.edu&#x2F;opentextbooks&#x2F;textbooks&#x2F;134</a>

Not sure what&#x27;s the point of section 4.3 Factoring Trinomials introducing &quot;trial and error (or guess and check) method&quot;, when this task can be solved easily without any trial and errors, by using 6.2 Quadratic Formula. Shouldn&#x27;t section 4.3 at least mention that possibility?<p>Is there something I do not understand here?

Hide the answers by default, yo. It&#x27;s so easy to do with an e-book, come onnnnnn

Really helpful way to start understanding the symbols. Clearly written.

Why does it need a calculator?

&gt; Irrational numbers are defined as any numbers that cannot be written as a ratio of two integers.<p>&gt; Finally, the set of real numbers, denoted R, is defined as the set of all rational numbers combined with the set of all irrational numbers.<p>I&#x27;m sorry, this is not how math works. Reals are basically defined as number. But what is a number?<p>Also the definition of Q is missing the quotient construction (or any motivation of how to deal with ka&#x2F;kb = a&#x2F;b).