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Asking "When will I ever use math?" is like jogging and asking, "When will I ever use these calf muscles?" (The answer to both is "all the time", but that's no

by edw519 15y ago

Asking "When will I ever use math?" is like jogging and asking, "When will I ever use these calf muscles?" (The answer to both is "all the time", but that's not the point.) I was a math major who did independent research in Elementary Number Theory and decided to switch paths and become a computer programmer (many years ago). It's true, I haven't encountered many sigmas, deltas, and derivative signs in all those years, but there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that I'm exercising the same mental muscles built with math. OP mentions “wondering, playing, amusing yourself with your imagination.” Hell, build something. Assembling ones and zeros to help real people solve real problems is every bit as wonderful, playful, and amusing as anything I ever did with pure mathematics. And probably even more rewarding...I've discovered that it's much more likely to see a customer do a happy dance with software that never existed before I built it than proving Fermat's Last Theorem or figuring out what Galois was up to on that long last night.

bluekeybox 15y ago
> OP mentions “wondering, playing, amusing yourself with your imagination.” Hell, build something. Mathematics is like AI. As soon as a company/whoever builds upon one of the advances in the field and people en masse start using a practical result that comes out of it, it stops being called mathematics/AI. When we hear the word "mathematician" we almost right away imagine an absent-minded professor not contributing anything immediately useful to the real world. People are basically arguing about language, not realizing that they are pawns of a subtle phenomenon that the name of a discipline taught in school refers not so much to knowledge based on and derived from that discipline in the world at large, but to the actual act of teaching that discipline to children and young adults, and sometimes to performing academic-model-funded (meaning charity-like funded) research. It's a bit sad because this trick the language plays on us probably devalues in the eyes of young people something that is actually a useful/practical skill. Kids may say to themselves, "Why do I need this? I don't want to be a schoolteacher," and they will be both right and wrong at the same time, not realizing how many high-paying jobs from engineering to banks to Wall Street require the mental skill they chose not to spend time developing.
timwiseman 15y ago
Very well said. Though it is worth noting the distinctions between different types of math. I found my studies of theoretical math in college enormous fruitful just as I found jogging beneficial. But I thought doing numerous arithmetic problems in middle school to be of minimal value and the rote memorization of things like multiplication tables to be worthless. In short, much like exercise, studying math should be done in a way that is pushing your personal limits at least a little.
- shasta 15y ago
  You don't use multiplication in your life?
  - grogs 15y ago
    You don't need to memorise your times tables to do multiplication. I seem to have learnt checkpoints within the times tables; e.g. when asked 76, I do 75+7. I know 10 and 5 times tables instantly, and adding 7 is trivial, so I clearly never bothered to actually learn the 6 times table. Rote learning is generally inferior. Give a man a fish versus teach how to fish.
    - Foy 15y ago
      I thought I was weird for always breaking apart multiplication problems in my head like that. Good to know I'm not alone. Same with addition, 1324 + 1872 is just 2000 + 324 + 872 which is just 3100 + 24 + 74 which is 3196. Math is about creativity, somewhat ironically. ;)
      - coopaq 15y ago
        I would say you were a little bit... 2 creative :)
      - DanBC 15y ago
        > I thought I was weird for always breaking apart multiplication problems in my head like that. It's a technique taught in schools now. (http://www.mad4maths.com/math_help_multiplication/ http://www.mad4maths.com/math_help_multiplication/) See also "Chunking" for division. (http://www.mad4maths.com/math_help_division/ http://www.mad4maths.com/math_help_division/)
InclinedPlane 15y ago
When I went to college I had so many credits to start due to AP courses/exams I had taken in HS that I started effectively in mid-sophomore year. I didn't know what I wanted to major in or do for a career but I was quite good at math and I enjoyed it so I did that, and ended up with a Bachelor's with a mathematics major before I could drink alcohol legally. Later I discovered my passion for the software craft and went down that road. Do I use any of the math I learned even in high school today? Almost never. And certainly a lot of the math I learned in college I have not used at all since then. That said, I would still do the same thing again if I had the choice. The mental tools I acquired through having an extensive education in mathematics have served me immensely well in my career and elsewhere. So much of math is about following or evaluating the conclusions to assumptions, which is the very foundation of science and of computer science as well, but also critically important in engineering, craftsmanship, and especially in troubleshooting. So much of software development comes down to research, investigation, logic, and the scientific method, and the skills I built up in studying math have given me a very sharp edge in that regard even over folks who have CS degrees from quite good schools.
technology 15y ago
There are many people who use math in daily life problem solving and others who don't know how to do it. They don't know how the individual math chapters interact together with a larger whole. If they knew how it interacted with a larger whole they wouldn't ask "When will I ever use math?". Here's what Russel Ackoff professor of systems sciences had to say about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdBiXbuD1h4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdBiXbuD1h4 (3 parts) Analytical thinking allows you to analyze the system at hand in a way that let you describe its behavior, its structure; it allows you to answer the “how?” question. Yet, it never helps you answering the “why?” question. So, we [Ackoff and his colleagues] had to develop a new way of thinking; the “systemic thinking” [,or sometimes it’s called “synthesis”] Synthesis, or systems thinking, allows you to truly understand the system and answer the “why?” question. Actually, it also has 3 steps (the same numbers of step for the traditional analysis), and each single step is interestingly quite the “opposite” to the corresponding step in analysis! Traditional Analysis 1. You take the thing you want to understand apart. 2. You explain the behavior of each part taken separately. 3. You explain the behavior of the containing whole. So if we’re trying to explain a university, we have to first explain the education system of which the university is a part. Synthesis (or Systems Thinking) 1. You take the thing you want to understand as a part of a larger whole. 2. You aggregate your explanation of the parts into an understanding of the whole. 3. You dis-aggregate the understanding of the whole into an understanding of the parts, so that we explain by identifying their role or function of a system in the larger system which it’s a part. And the explanation of a behavior of a system lies in its role or function in the larger system of which it’s a part. Example - You go to a business school and you look at the course structure. You study marketing as a separate subject, finance as a seprate subject, production as a seperate subject. The net result is at the end of the business school you have no understanding of what a business is and not even the understanding of its parts. You can't study production independently without understanding how it interacts with marketing, finance, personnel, product and so on

by edw519 15y ago

bluekeybox 15y ago

> OP mentions “wondering, playing, amusing yourself with your imagination.” Hell, build something. Mathematics is like AI. As soon as a company/whoever builds upon one of the advances in the field and people en masse start using a practical result that comes out of it, it stops being called mathematics/AI. When we hear the word "mathematician" we almost right away imagine an absent-minded professor not contributing anything immediately useful to the real world. People are basically arguing about language, not realizing that they are pawns of a subtle phenomenon that the name of a discipline taught in school refers not so much to knowledge based on and derived from that discipline in the world at large, but to the actual act of teaching that discipline to children and young adults, and sometimes to performing academic-model-funded (meaning charity-like funded) research. It's a bit sad because this trick the language plays on us probably devalues in the eyes of young people something that is actually a useful/practical skill. Kids may say to themselves, "Why do I need this? I don't want to be a schoolteacher," and they will be both right and wrong at the same time, not realizing how many high-paying jobs from engineering to banks to Wall Street require the mental skill they chose not to spend time developing.

timwiseman 15y ago

Very well said. Though it is worth noting the distinctions between different types of math. I found my studies of theoretical math in college enormous fruitful just as I found jogging beneficial. But I thought doing numerous arithmetic problems in middle school to be of minimal value and the rote memorization of things like multiplication tables to be worthless. In short, much like exercise, studying math should be done in a way that is pushing your personal limits at least a little.

shasta 15y ago
You don't use multiplication in your life?
- grogs 15y ago
  You don't need to memorise your times tables to do multiplication. I seem to have learnt checkpoints within the times tables; e.g. when asked 76, I do 75+7. I know 10 and 5 times tables instantly, and adding 7 is trivial, so I clearly never bothered to actually learn the 6 times table. Rote learning is generally inferior. Give a man a fish versus teach how to fish.
  - Foy 15y ago
    I thought I was weird for always breaking apart multiplication problems in my head like that. Good to know I'm not alone. Same with addition, 1324 + 1872 is just 2000 + 324 + 872 which is just 3100 + 24 + 74 which is 3196. Math is about creativity, somewhat ironically. ;)
    - coopaq 15y ago
      I would say you were a little bit... 2 creative :)
    - DanBC 15y ago
      > I thought I was weird for always breaking apart multiplication problems in my head like that. It's a technique taught in schools now. (http://www.mad4maths.com/math_help_multiplication/ http://www.mad4maths.com/math_help_multiplication/) See also "Chunking" for division. (http://www.mad4maths.com/math_help_division/ http://www.mad4maths.com/math_help_division/)

InclinedPlane 15y ago

When I went to college I had so many credits to start due to AP courses/exams I had taken in HS that I started effectively in mid-sophomore year. I didn't know what I wanted to major in or do for a career but I was quite good at math and I enjoyed it so I did that, and ended up with a Bachelor's with a mathematics major before I could drink alcohol legally. Later I discovered my passion for the software craft and went down that road. Do I use any of the math I learned even in high school today? Almost never. And certainly a lot of the math I learned in college I have not used at all since then. That said, I would still do the same thing again if I had the choice. The mental tools I acquired through having an extensive education in mathematics have served me immensely well in my career and elsewhere. So much of math is about following or evaluating the conclusions to assumptions, which is the very foundation of science and of computer science as well, but also critically important in engineering, craftsmanship, and especially in troubleshooting. So much of software development comes down to research, investigation, logic, and the scientific method, and the skills I built up in studying math have given me a very sharp edge in that regard even over folks who have CS degrees from quite good schools.

technology 15y ago

There are many people who use math in daily life problem solving and others who don't know how to do it. They don't know how the individual math chapters interact together with a larger whole. If they knew how it interacted with a larger whole they wouldn't ask "When will I ever use math?". Here's what Russel Ackoff professor of systems sciences had to say about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdBiXbuD1h4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdBiXbuD1h4 (3 parts) Analytical thinking allows you to analyze the system at hand in a way that let you describe its behavior, its structure; it allows you to answer the “how?” question. Yet, it never helps you answering the “why?” question. So, we [Ackoff and his colleagues] had to develop a new way of thinking; the “systemic thinking” [,or sometimes it’s called “synthesis”] Synthesis, or systems thinking, allows you to truly understand the system and answer the “why?” question. Actually, it also has 3 steps (the same numbers of step for the traditional analysis), and each single step is interestingly quite the “opposite” to the corresponding step in analysis! Traditional Analysis 1. You take the thing you want to understand apart. 2. You explain the behavior of each part taken separately. 3. You explain the behavior of the containing whole. So if we’re trying to explain a university, we have to first explain the education system of which the university is a part. Synthesis (or Systems Thinking) 1. You take the thing you want to understand as a part of a larger whole. 2. You aggregate your explanation of the parts into an understanding of the whole. 3. You dis-aggregate the understanding of the whole into an understanding of the parts, so that we explain by identifying their role or function of a system in the larger system which it’s a part. And the explanation of a behavior of a system lies in its role or function in the larger system of which it’s a part. Example - You go to a business school and you look at the course structure. You study marketing as a separate subject, finance as a seprate subject, production as a seperate subject. The net result is at the end of the business school you have no understanding of what a business is and not even the understanding of its parts. You can't study production independently without understanding how it interacts with marketing, finance, personnel, product and so on