Math is...

I use basic math in my job daily. An example: 12/307+5/33+ 3/17+/50+3/33 where X is whole and /x is partial, so that equation = 23/540 ./. 60  = 32.  Because I use this everyday, I do this in my head. Add this, add that, divide, add the whole to the whole /remainder. (In this example, there was no remainder.) To me, this is elementary. I tried to show a co-worker how to do this because I made my calculations in seconds and her method took about 4.5 minutes (of what appeared to be shear torture.) I confused her as much as dy/dx = tan(y) * cos(4x) (0 < y < pi/2) confuses me.

I think math is fascinating. There are vast quantities of it that leave me lost, confused, and frustrated, but it is still fascinating. Math knows everything. A long historical time ago, we didn't have math. We didn't even have +/-. When we got +/-, it was so the money changers could denote overages and shortages in gold weights. A plug was made to be the balance and gold was weighed against the plug. A match was =, a shortage was noted as -, an overage as +. Eventually those symbols gained names.

Imagine this! Until we had +/-, we had no concept of math. We could tell that xxxx was similar to cccc, and that xxxx was the same as xxxx but different from xxx and xxxxx. We could decide we'd rather have xxxxx, and we'd rather trade xxx to get it, but we couldn't say why that was. When I was a kid, my mother said "I don't understand this new math" so she couldn't help my brother with algebra. Algebra was new when I was young. 1+1 was only several hundred years old, but    was new. With math, we start understanding space and nature. But math is a language, and a lot us don't speak it. Some are fluent, some are tourists, some are strangers altogether.

I had a fantastic teacher once, Professor MacKenzie, who subbed in my 11th grade psych class for a full semester. He was mind blowing - he forgot we were not grad students and taught us as if we were intelligent beings, unlike the teacher he was subbing for, who treated us like moronic gnats. Anyway, the first thing I remember learning from Prof. MacKenzie - by way of aplogy for getting ahead of our knowledge - is that when the student fails to learn, it is because the teacher has failed to teach at a level the student can understand.  That's right. I had a teacher who said that if I failed to learn it was HIS fault for not teaching me in a way I could understand.

The shows that fascinate me are the ones that play with science and math. Bones, CSI, Lie to Me, Numbers. I'm waiting for some brilliant writer to put them all together. People can understand physics and math. We don't think we can because physicists and mathematicians don't usually know how to speak their language and ours too, but when we get a translator - like Neil De Grasse Tyson, or Michio Kaku - we can. Maybe I'll never solve some scientific conundrum, but I can grasp the idea and so can you. All we need is the right teacher.