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To your second point, I would disagree that we learn maths that we may likely never directly use not because of historical fascination, but because progressivel
by kuhewa 4y ago
To your second point, I would disagree that we learn maths that we may likely never directly use not because of historical fascination, but because progressively expanding student's mathematical knowledge serves the purpose of meta-learning, learning to learn.
As to your question I've touched on a little for manipulation of some of the classic equations in ecology and population biology, growth curves, population growth, etc. Barely needed to crack an introductory textbook to do it though. Had I learned real calculus and maybe differential equations there is some really interesting modelling I'd be able to do in this space, but instead I'm stuck seeing the diffuse shadow of the idea on the wall of Plato's cave. That's not a wistful lament though because to your point, time spent boning up on linear algebra instead of calculus would provide at least an order of magnitude more utility for my work.
- Maursault 4y ago> To your second point, I would disagree that we learn maths that we may likely never directly use not because of historical fascination That was not my point. No one learns math because of historical fascination. The point was simply the stories about the math are more interesting than the math itself, which isn't any stretch of the imagination.
- kuhewa 4y agoThat's comparing a tool to an insight though, like sure 'grammar' isn't as interesting as a poem. Math is interesting because despite being axiomatic there are all of these emergent things it can correctly predict about the world. To mix metaphors, there are very interesting stories that are at least in part in the grammar of math.