Mathematics

So I got done with school last Wednesday. I know, right. I should be like "heck yeah" and "wow I can't believe this year went by so fast" and hanging out with theoretical friends and seeing movies and...you get the idea.

What have I been doing? Playing 2048 as I wait for the phone to ring for job interviews. I can't decide if that sentence makes me sound more like an adult or a child.

If you don't know what 2048 is, it's a math game involving powers of two, all the way up to 2^11, which equals 2048. You can try it out here (I warn you, it can be either very boring or, as in my case, very addicting).

Being addicted to this game reminds me that I genuinely like math. I just finished calculus this year and I actually really enjoyed it. Calculus was especially interesting and beautiful to me because it can seamlessly show the relationship among changing things, and how there are more connections among apparently unrelated things than you think.

I know that's vague, but that's my general idea. I was never really a math person until I started precalculus. It was then that I saw that many random things I had learned up to that point actually had relevance and worked together. And almost always flawlessly, at that. It got me curious.

Soon I discovered Numberphile as I was investigating why people seem to love to say they "hate math" or "were never much of a math person". There, I found a video of one of the world's greatest mathematicians, Edward Frenkel, discussing why he believed many people dislike math. You can watch that video here.

I was intrigued. And moved. And suddenly, it all made sense. I was always good at math, but it was boring until I got to higher level math. It is there when you begin to see correlations, and it becomes enticing and exquisite.

Back to Edward Frenkel. He is incredible. He advocates changing the way we teach math to allow kids to see the real gems of mathematics and show them that there is so much more to math than the boring stuff you do for 10 years. Frenkel recently wrote a book (which I plan on reading and enjoying very shortly), too, called Love and Math about his experience becoming a mathematician and other math-related things. He is even so in love with mathematics that he made an short, erotic movie, called Rights of Love and Math, about finding a mathematical formula for love.

Perhaps that seems like a little much, but that honestly inspires me. The fact that he does something he loves so much that he makes an almost pornographic movie about it is awesome to me. His personal story is inspiring in so many ways. He honestly has been an encouragement to me to continue loving math because it will only get better as it gets more difficult.

Perhaps the main reason I enjoy math is because, at least in the math I do, I know there is going to be a definite solution. You're presented with a problem and there is a satisfaction in knowing that you can solve it and get the single right answer. Life's problems are not so much like that. You're usually unexpectedly presented with a serious problem, and somehow you're expected to figure it out and get the right solution. But the key is, you rarely know the right course of action to take. Or the even the right solution. You're supposed to solve a problem that you don't know how to solve. You are effectively blind.

And that is where math is beautiful. For most of math, there is clarity. There is a correct answer, and many right ways to approach it. Once you find that solution, you experience the beauty of how numerous parts can fit together into the most splendid machine.

Mathematics is a truly wonderful and mysterious world. I hope that someday the common negative connotations associated with it dissolve with better teaching and understanding. Then, just maybe, we can all experience something truly beautiful.