2+2=5
I, in recent years have been most fascinated by the way Mathematics touches our life. Seldom does one sit and ponder about subjects we are made to study in school. My earliest memories of my father trying to teach me math aren't the best days growing up but now, to look back at them, make them more memorable. As a child, I have often cursed Sir. Isaac Newton as to why couldn't he just eat the apple that fell of a tree, Why did he have to come with a disaster called calculus.
What is so fascinating about calculus, algebra, surds? To me it is their existence in everyday life. I am amazed at the simplicity of its occurrence. I am sure, one can make claims of other subject areas as well. We all deal with numbers while investing in a home, buying grocery and the countless times I sit in a day making phone calls, looking at time, taking a photograph, writing my next blog, counting stars in the sky. Math is like a painting. Some can see the beauty in it while it is repulsive to the others, but one cannot deny its existence. I am most amazed by how the right amount of particles get together to form any matter, how 3 basic colors give the aroma of colors that exist around us. It enables us to build telescopes, enables us to fly aircrafts, help create search engines, enables us to define economies, is instrumental in defining a government. Nothing can be more beautiful that recognizing the importance of why I learnt something and how it affects us. To me that justifies the countless taunts that I heard as a child to do well in school.
If I may ask, would there have been a concept called "time" if math never existed? Maybe..Maybe not. How did the cave man, or let say the animals and nature track time. Sunrise and sunset...hmm. Maybe the other species have a natural clock built into them..who knows. How can the Siberian crane calculate the time? How is a penguin able to make decisions? Within the brain, math is what decides the difference between a normal person or say someone who suffers from addiction. It is math that is able to tell a chemist the amount of drug to be used, math that decides the strength a material can take, math that decides if the currency is devalued, it is math that helps us solve the mystery called space and explain the motion of transmitters across the synapse in the brain.... It is all a play of numbers.
A recent discussion made me conclude that animals have to be as intelligent as humans to have propagated to the 21st century. I am not an expert on Darwinian theories but, how did birds learn to decide what is good for them to survive. How do pets learn to build associations with its master? How did bats realize they could use ultrasound to hunt? Why are we have been paired as opposites in nature, predator and prey, man and woman and so many other associations all with a sole purpose of either progeny or restricting it? Seems like nature devised itself by and for doing math. In Phil Pastoret's words "If you think dogs can't count,try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them."
...what is the purpose of having all this beauty if we don't have the intelligence to appreciate it. I guess the impending question to ask is...Why did it take evolution so many million years to create an intelligent race? I wonder what if the 21st century had happened like a 1000 years ago...Wonder where we would be today?
On a closing note I wish to quote Calvin Trillin:
I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.
What is so fascinating about calculus, algebra, surds? To me it is their existence in everyday life. I am amazed at the simplicity of its occurrence. I am sure, one can make claims of other subject areas as well. We all deal with numbers while investing in a home, buying grocery and the countless times I sit in a day making phone calls, looking at time, taking a photograph, writing my next blog, counting stars in the sky. Math is like a painting. Some can see the beauty in it while it is repulsive to the others, but one cannot deny its existence. I am most amazed by how the right amount of particles get together to form any matter, how 3 basic colors give the aroma of colors that exist around us. It enables us to build telescopes, enables us to fly aircrafts, help create search engines, enables us to define economies, is instrumental in defining a government. Nothing can be more beautiful that recognizing the importance of why I learnt something and how it affects us. To me that justifies the countless taunts that I heard as a child to do well in school.
If I may ask, would there have been a concept called "time" if math never existed? Maybe..Maybe not. How did the cave man, or let say the animals and nature track time. Sunrise and sunset...hmm. Maybe the other species have a natural clock built into them..who knows. How can the Siberian crane calculate the time? How is a penguin able to make decisions? Within the brain, math is what decides the difference between a normal person or say someone who suffers from addiction. It is math that is able to tell a chemist the amount of drug to be used, math that decides the strength a material can take, math that decides if the currency is devalued, it is math that helps us solve the mystery called space and explain the motion of transmitters across the synapse in the brain.... It is all a play of numbers.
A recent discussion made me conclude that animals have to be as intelligent as humans to have propagated to the 21st century. I am not an expert on Darwinian theories but, how did birds learn to decide what is good for them to survive. How do pets learn to build associations with its master? How did bats realize they could use ultrasound to hunt? Why are we have been paired as opposites in nature, predator and prey, man and woman and so many other associations all with a sole purpose of either progeny or restricting it? Seems like nature devised itself by and for doing math. In Phil Pastoret's words "If you think dogs can't count,try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them."
...what is the purpose of having all this beauty if we don't have the intelligence to appreciate it. I guess the impending question to ask is...Why did it take evolution so many million years to create an intelligent race? I wonder what if the 21st century had happened like a 1000 years ago...Wonder where we would be today?
On a closing note I wish to quote Calvin Trillin:
I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.
posted by Ashwin at 2:31 AM
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