Math is Everywhere

re: Math is Everywhere

ines — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:20:31 GMT

my teacher gave me like a homework to find out some info for coding in math.i didnt know nothing about it because im still in the 10th grade in collage.but im very interested to know about this topic and i wish ill do the best for it!

re: Math is Everywhere

Cassandra Thompson — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:27:00 GMT

You make some good points. Still I understand why the math teacher asks this question. There are many more reasons then just the ones that you address.

I would the chance to ask her what sort of responses she recieved (cass.harley@bigpond.com), as I am in the process of gathering the same sorts of things.

We use a pile of bus timetables to help students understand networks and spanning trees. See an application is a great memory tool. A teacher knowing an application exists and being able to implement it in the classroom is also a great learning tool.

re: Math is Everywhere

Eric Lippert — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:04:00 GMT

Ah, I understand your point now.

And indeed, no matter how you slice it, food and resource production and distribution are going to be a mess as the world population doubles one last time.

re: Math is Everywhere

CB — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 22:54:00 GMT

My point relating what you (Eric) said to ecological crises wasn't that one caused the other (in either direction). It's more that I wonder if *both* come from a widespread swing away from the messy complexities of rationality, with all its requirements of evidence, probability, and balance, towards simple utilitarian calculus as a primary decision-making tool. In education: as you say, only teach me what will tend towards a higher-paid job. In global politics: do whatever we believe results in GNP growth (regardless of other consequences).

A small nitpick re your nitpick: global food stocks are now at a living-memory low (about 3 months, the last I read). Average per-hectare yields have been declining now for over 20 years as modern farming techniques have been unable to continue to compensate for soil degradation, reduced water availability, and climate change in many parts of the world. China, self-sufficient in food for many years, is now a net importer because it's wheat belt is being swallowed by the Gobi desert which is growing at 1000's of square km's per year. Distribution was and is probably still the primary problem, but production is becoming increasingly an issue as world population increases at the same time as the amount of available productive land, in decent condition, and in areas where the climate conduces to large-scale production, decreases.

re: Math is Everywhere

Dave Anderson — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 18:13:00 GMT

• "the world now produces more than enough food to feed everyone comfortably, for the first time in history. The crisis lies in bad distribution due to corruption, war and other badness, not due to production"

An enligtening corollary: "If the solution for AIDS were to bring a glass of clean water to everybody in the world, we would not be able to do it." -- Dr. Joseph Decosas, 1996 International Conference on AIDS

• Didn't Paulos also write "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper"?

• As for the Abelian grape, I'm still looking for a good math joke that begins with: What's xxx and telecommutes?

• Great topic, Eric.

re: Math is Everywhere

Dr. Orbifold — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 15:15:00 GMT

Again, I go away from the internet for two whole days and I miss good posts like this...

Good post Eric, although I have to agree with Zac about the mathematics vs. algorithm design part. Keep in mind that my own research uses computers more than the average mathematician, so algorithms play a larger than average part in my research.

If I had to answer the question "What is mathematics" in one sentence, I'd say "Mathematics is composition". Mostly that would be a ploy to annoy the questioner into giving me more sentences in my follow-up, but it's still an honest answer. Mathematics is about describing things, either the world around us or the world inside our heads, in the language of algebra and logic. It's much closer to the liberal arts than any other branch of science.

re: Math is Everywhere

Elbie — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:36:00 GMT

Besides, if you don't have a good background at math, you'll never be accepted socially.

What kind of backwards misfit would you be if you don't get the punchline to the timeless classic, "What's purple and commutes?"

re: Math is Everywhere

Math is Hard... Lets Bake Cookies... 'Barbie' — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 05:49:00 GMT

One of my proffessors in college made all his students read a great book just on this very matter. It was called 'Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences' by John Allen Paulos. Fantastic book.

re: Math is Everywhere

Eric Lippert — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 03:52:00 GMT

This is kind of weird actually -- I made this post on Wednesday, and the next day there's a new study released that says that American high schools aren't teaching enough math, and the cover story of USA Today is that 22 states now require algebra for a high school diploma, an all-time high. I did not realize that algebra is traditionally taught only to the college-bound in the United States.

I certainly agree with you that universities have lost their earlier function -- to expose students to the whole universe of human knowledge, to make better human beings. The contract now is more about "don't show me anything I don't need to know in order to get a better job", which is a shame.

However, I don't want to get too rosy in my look back at the past. The organized education system has been classist since the Platonic "Philosopher Kings should rule the world" Academy.

But I'm not following your point -- yes, wholesale damage to the global ecology has proceded apace for some time now, but I have a hard time blaming that on the lack of widespread liberal arts education.

(To nit pick -- the world now produces more than enough food to feed everyone comfortably, for the first time in history. The crisis lies in bad distribution due to corruption, war and other badness, not due to production.)

re: Math is Everywhere

CB — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 03:05:00 GMT

I personally agree with just about every point you make. But it's important to realise that most western societies (especially the anglo ones) have now comprehensively rejected a non-utilitarian approach to knowledge and education since around the mid-70's. Most universities are now essentially job-training centres, and education in any true sense is hardly a part of their remit any longer.

The citizens of our societies, again especially the English-speaking ones, repeatedly vote for extremely narrow right-wing voices who reject evidence-based policy in favour of blind utilitarian recalculation of GNP.

Unfortunately it's too late to do anything about all this now -- oil's nearly run out, food production is in crisis, land and marine ecosystems are damaged almost beyond repair, and global warming is about to bring many chickens home to roost. So, in truth, those of us who believe in non-utilitarian knowledge gathering have lost the ultimate battle.