Renegade343 Posted December 3, 2015 Share Posted December 3, 2015 Most people seem to not enjoy mathematics, justifying this along the lines of, "What's the use of it in my life?", "I don't get it even if I tried.", or "The people who are famous in the field of mathematics just seem to get the proofs without even trying, and I can never measure up to it.", amongst other ones. In particular, I will be talking about the third justification listed here. Most people would have seen proofs (common ones such as the Pythagorean Theorem, the formula for a tangent line etc.) when doing mathematics (if one has studied in school, then most definitely), and oftentimes, these proofs are presented as flawless, in the sense that it shows each correct step (with varying levels of clarity). This leads to majority of those people thinking that whoever came up with those proofs just came up with them and it was correct, without any errors made along the way. Then, when those people try their hands at doing proofs (any proofs, it does not matter), more often than not, they will make mistakes, and become demotivated to continue on studying mathematics when they keep on making mistakes (or just give up on the question), often in the thought that they would never be able to match the people who derived the proofs (or because it was not worth wasting time on mathematics if that many errors occurred, either way). Now, granted, I will admit that I had gave up on a few questions/proofs when I cannot seem to find the correct solution to them (but not without trying a lot), but my response to those people still stands: The people who first derived those proofs also had to go through similar processes to you, using various methods to obtain the proof, revising and erasing portions that turned out to be wrong, and having to check what they did was correct every line or two, so that the result is a solid proof that can be used for its intended purpose. The only difference is (apart from often proving something that is useful enough to make them be recorded in history) their persistence (and also skill, but that is the result from persistence). In short, mathematicians are not magicians; mathematicians are people who work to the best of their ability to solve problems and find proofs. So, appreciate the fact that those proofs are the result from months or years of solid work instead of being pulled out of a hat, and continue studying mathematics, because it is a place where everything is logical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egregiousRac Posted December 3, 2015 Share Posted December 3, 2015 To hit on justification 1, between my job of purchasing/inventorying/budgeting/accounting/etc and my side of drafting/modeling I use pretty much everything I ever learned in a math class, and a lot more. Math is incredibly important to everything we do in life. If you aren't doing it you are paying someone else to do it for you, whether you realise it or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-FV-Metheria Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 At first, I thought this said: "A small talk about meth" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
321agemo Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 The lack of an s makes me twitchy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egregiousRac Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 The lack of an s makes me twitchy. Maths doesn't make sense. Math is a concept and, as such, is singular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
321agemo Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 Maths doesn't make sense. Math is a concept and, as such, is singular.Yet you could argue mathematics is dealing with a series of numbers/letters so it would make more sense to “plural” it.there's plenty of arguements for using maths (used in UK) over math (used in USA) and vice versa. Im was just being petty with the s and hoping to get some laughs. Guess no one found it funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egregiousRac Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 Yet you could argue mathematics is dealing with a series of numbers/letters so it would make more sense to “plural” it. there's plenty of arguements for using maths (used in UK) over math (used in USA) and vice versa. Im was just being petty with the s and hoping to get some laughs. Guess no one found it funny. Oh I found it funny. So funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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