#spoiler alert: i'm most likely not going to stick to pure mathematics

[someabstractthoughts]

mathematical misconceptions pt. 1

I’m a math major. 

The responses I get to that statement fall into three rough categories:

Ew, I hate math.

You must be a genius!

But what do you do???

Sadly, mathematics has become one of the most hated subjects out there, if it doesn’t take the crown. 

I believe the first two responses stem from a tragic treatment of mathematics across schools worldwide. From a young age, we are presented with maths as a kind of black box, you throw some numbers at it, and it throws some numbers back. We go through our academic careers learning formulas, wondering what is the point of it all with calculators in our reach 24/7.

We are taught how to count in a very intuitive way. One apple and two apples make three apples, we can see it, we can touch it, and we can understand it. It gets a little bit vaguer as we get to multiplication, two times two makes four, alright. Two times three makes six, all good. Thirteen times one hundred and twenty seven makes one thousand, six hundred and fifty one. Huh?‌ Sure.

It may be hard to believe, but most of the mathematical knowledge out there can be as intuitive as counting, if seen from the right lens. However, most people will lose the thread of mathematics at some point in their lives. For some it’s fractions, others algebra, a few brave souls get to calculus before giving up completely. 

I‌ fell in love with maths from the second I could count with my tiny little fingers. It was this wonderful thing, you could play with it, you could spin it around, this random sequence of symbols that I had been taught made so many interesting things. You could count, you could add stuff. Subtracting?‌ Sure!‌ It’s just like adding, but backwards. Multiplication?‌ Great!‌ Like adding, but many times. I found so much joy in discovering what I could do with it, figuring out what came next, like a story.

As I grew up, I loved the simpleness of it. Right or wrong, no ambiguity, and with some care and creativity, you could figure out whether you were right or wrong. (Later I would come to find out how wrong this statement is, but that’s a post for another time…)

No matter how much I enjoyed it, I could not picture my life as a mathematician, because I could not picture what a mathematician was. The real fun bits of maths lay beyond my academic experience, and it would be years before I would come to know them.

My feelings for mathematics are all over the place. Many posts await, in which I will desperately try to shape my jumbled thoughts, and share why math is a beautiful thing to behold. 

But for now, going back to the three statements, here’s what I would respond if I wasn’t terribly anxious about starting a debate with acquaintances and family members who just want to judge my life choices:

Give it another chance. You most certainly don’t need to make yourself love calculus, but I encourage you to go find some of the really cool things that you can do with it. Approach it with a clear mind, curiosity, and I’m sure you’ll find something amazing.

I’m not. Believe it or not, the most important thing is practice, and perseveration. Kinda like music, some people may be predisposed to it, but anyone can be good at something if they stick to it. Also, while we’re at it, no, I cannot solve 124563*32454 in my head. 

Great question!‌ Simple answer, make more mathematics. Better answer, solve puzzles, ask questions, try to answer them, create new tools for answering them, often find even more questions along the way, try to answer them, repeat.