This is a good question, why is it that seemingly nobody uses the math they've been taught? When I was in school, my math teacher used to write AMBS on the boa

This is a good question, why is it that seemingly nobody uses the math they've been taught? When I was in school, my math teacher used to write AMBS on the board before calculus lessons: Algebra Must Be Strong. What happens when you study calculus is you end up rehashing algebra over and over again until it's second nature. Consequently if you find someone who's done well at calculus, you can be sure they can do algebra. Someone mentioned this in relation to RenTech. Why do they hire mathematicians who have studied incredibly complex things with seemingly no relation to trading? One reason might be that people who have done that know the fundamentals very, very well. Similarly accountants don't use vectors or geometry at work either, but they certainly are comfortable with arithmetic and its application in spreadsheets. When I look at my own education, it is also the case that the things I'm least sure of are the deepest, latest courses that build on everything else. Probably if I built on top of those I'd be more comfortable with them. Taking this line it would appear that you can't just teach people the math they'll use, because they won't really get it until they try to do the next thing. A thing that needs addressing is the notion that we should only teach people things that will be useful, which seems to underlie this article. We should teach people how to explore, and math is the premier example of a large space that can be explored with very little access to resources and evidence. You can do it just in your mind, and you don't need any apparatus or conclusions from people who had such apparatus, like you do in science.