Maths is Useful · 10:20pm Sep 22nd, 2016
Anyway, so for some reason, lately I've been noticing a lot of anti-maths sentiment on Fimfiction. One common claim seems to be "yeah, so basic algebra is useful, but we're never going to use something like simultaneous equations in real life". As someone with a degree in maths, I wanted to say a few things.
Firstly, whatever happened to the pursuit of knowledge as an end in itself? Learning is great. Why does something have to be useful to be worth learning? I'm never going to need to know the names and capital cities of each of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros (Game of Thrones reference, people) in real life, but it's fun to learn things. It's interesting. Don't you want to be a fun and interesting person? Do you really want to be a person who knows the bare minimum of stuff necessary to eke out an existence on the planet? Go and learn stuff for the sake of learning stuff.
Secondly, I dislike the sense of pride people use when they say they don't understand maths. Like this is a socially acceptable, even cool thing. Nobody would ever laugh off illiteracy — not being able to read is seen as something to be ashamed of. Nobody celebrates their inability to dress themselves or tie their own shoelaces. Being bad at something isn't something to be proud of.
Thirdly, maths is useful. Linear algebra is useful. Simultaneous equations are useful. Don't believe me? Read on!
Okay, so recently, I was faced with buying a chest of drawers. I thought about getting a wardrobe instead, but I didn't want to risk opening a portal to another universe, ruled by a creepy talking lion. (Sorry, Aslan, I love you really.) Anyway, the space the drawers needed to fit into is kind of weird. The room is built into the roof of the building, so one of the walls slopes. Let me draw you a picture…
As you can see, the drawers have to fit between the radiator and the sloping wall. What sized drawers should I get?
It's not an easy answer. If my drawers are fairly wide, then they cannot be very tall because of the slope of the wall. If I find narrower drawers, they can be taller. You see?
So when ordering drawers, the maximum allowable height depends on their width. This is actually a linear equation:
h = aw + b
The maximum height h is the width w times a constant a (which will actually be a negative number) plus another constant b. But what are a and b in real terms? Effectively a is an indicator of how sloped the wall is and b is an indicator of how far the radiator is from the wall.
So anyway, I needed to buy some drawers, so I needed to figure out a and b. To do this, I got out a tape measure, and at a few different heights, measured how far the radiator was from the wall. This gave me a few different copies of the equation
h = aw + b
… but with the h and w filled in. So I want to find a and b and have a few different equations containing them? Easy! Simultaneous equations!
I actually had four sets of measurements, which were all fairly rough. Four things can be put into pairs in six different ways. Let's call my sets of measurements A, B, C, and D. The pairings are then: AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, and CD. I solved the pairs independently, each giving slightly different values for a and b. I averaged all of those out, to come up with:
h = -2.75w + 335
I tested this equation by using it to figure out the distance from the radiator to the wall at floor height (which for some reason wasn't one of my initial four measurements). And it was correct to within a couple of centimetres. So… yay me.
Anyway, because they like you to show your workings in class…
So that's it. Maths is fun. You should learn it because it's good to learn. And it's useful. Even the stuff you don't expect to ever be useful.
I kind of get this. I'm not at maths as I used to be, but it's still nice to learn.
Yeah, I've never understood the glorification of ignorance. Heck, I don't see why the term "elitism" carries negative connotations. Who doesn't want to be elite?
Of course, self-improvement requires actual, you know, effort. In areas that aren't necessarily fun. And speaking as someone who probably could've graduated from college in half the time if the Internet didn't exist, I can definitely understand how that would dissuade some people.
Moondancer happened.
The main thing, at least for me, is that math (unlike memorizing nerdy trivia) isn't enjoyable to a lot of folks. I find it to be dull, mind-numbing, and downright painful. As for your real life example... I think "being useful" and "having a use" are not necessarily the same thing. Not to say that math is useless, but most of us get along just fine without using anything more complicated than what we learn in the sixth grade. Even in your example, someone who didn't want to bother busting out the pen and paper probably could've eyeballed it and would have been more or less fine. Not like literacy, which dictates just about everything in our daily life.
I can't defend the glorification of ignorance, though. Regardless of what I personally feel about the subject, I won't say that I'm better off for not knowing. Just that I'll live, you know? But that's just my two-cents
Neerrrrrrrd
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Says the girl who wrote an essay entitled "Why I am a Nerd" (or words to that effect).
4224481 Shush
The problem with math that most of the math won't be used.
Some will be used by some people, other parts will be used by others and then some people won't ever use anything but the most basic math.
I suck at math, it's not much a pride thing as it is a fact.
For example, I didn't understand the math thing above at all.
And I don't see the point of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, without an application, I could spend that time either on something productive or fun.
For me, the high demands on math does nothing but keeping me out of education for no reason, since everything requires it, no matter how little it's actually needed for said career.
And fun?
We have very different ideas of what's fun, to me, it's more akin to torture.
It's fine and dandy to learn for fun, I do that all the time, the thing is tho...the subject itself must be interesting for that...and math is the opposite for a lot of people.
¡Somepony loving mathetics too! ¿Did you know that math predates maths and no other word ending in s has the s on the end of the abbreviation?
As someone into Mathematics, have you heard the good news of the 1 true circleconstant τ (Tau)?:
c / r = τ ≈ 6.28318530717959
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What about "Mrs"? And "vs"?
I know of it, but Pinkie Tau doesn't have the same appeal.
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¡One ends up with twice as many Pinkamena Dianes!
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I think you'll find it's the opposite: half as many.
Pinkie Tau = 2 × Pinkie Pie