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To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

quantamagazine.org

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Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#61

Post by imranq »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #8

Based on all the supposed benefits of doing math, it sounds like people would be better off studying philosophy. Same benefits but a much broader appeal, and far more applicable to most people's everyday lives. When I finally "discovered" philosophy in college, I was angry that we hadn't been exposed to it at all in middle or high school. Instead, I'd been forced to waste years on things like math, biology, etc. that…

For me, philosophy shows the ideals of human affairs and the the higher ideals, but it seems to suffer from too many opinions and contradictory viewpoints.

Mathematics gives you the kernel of the universe. Its a much finer grained tool that represents absolutes.

Can you look at the heat equation and see the beauty in it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_equation

That the heat from your laptop flows in this way thoughout the air around it. As does the warmth of breath, or body heat or the heat surrounding an open flame?

And then there are logical principles that create "elegant" logical structures like in group theory, where you develop two different ways of looking at things only to find out they were one and the same all along (e.g. Lagrange's theorem).

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#62

Post by afterburner »

Koshkin wrote: post #45

Well, mathematics is hard. It takes a lot of effort to really learn it, a lot of dedication and (self-)motivation. Not everyone can do it, and, frankly, very few people - even among those who have spent many years studying mathematics - could say that it is the best way to live your life.

This reminds me of when people say the best career is the one they happen to have, and everyone should do what they do. But... people are different.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#63

Post by 110011 »

As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremendous toll on the mind and not for someone who falls easy prey to self doubt. Sometimes even after you publish your top result that took a lot out of you, it may take many years before people appreciate, let alone understand, your work- the vast majority of papers are never going to be read. To compensate for this horrible feedback mechanism you need to basically play the popularity game and try to give many talks and talk up your result when you meet people, so there's a lot of salesmanship involved here as well. So the career path of a junior scientist is pretty crushing mentally and I couldn't stomach it in the long run.

In an ideal world I might have continued in academia but the career path is so twisted you have to either be insanely good (at math and at managing time) or just hate yourself enough to sacrifice your best years working essentially in the metaphorical darkness well outside the spotlight and most likely alone and poorly paid.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#64

Post by grzm »

lineindc wrote: post #34
77pt77 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and far more applicable to most people's everyday lives. I guess we'll just have to completely disagree on that.

How do you even get a job as a philosopher?

Professors, think tanks, policy research groups.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#65

Post by blurbleblurble »

Koshkin wrote: post #45

Well, mathematics is hard. It takes a lot of effort to really learn it, a lot of dedication and (self-)motivation. Not everyone can do it, and, frankly, very few people - even among those who have spent many years studying mathematics - could say that it is the best way to live your life.

I profoundly disagree. I believe that mathematics can be learned and appreciated by many, because mathematics is a language for articulating inner urges and perceptions that are common to a wide range of creatures, not only humans. This idea that mathematics is only for the few is self fulfilling, and perpetuated by narrow ideas of what it constitutes.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#66

Post by cpsempek »

jcoffland wrote: post #32
gthtjtkt wrote: post #8

Based on all the supposed benefits of doing math, it sounds like people would be better off studying philosophy. Same benefits but a much broader appeal, and far more applicable to most people's everyday lives. When I finally "discovered" philosophy in college, I was angry that we hadn't been exposed to it at all in middle or high school. Instead, I'd been forced to waste years on things like math, biology, etc. that…

I disagree. I find math much more interesting. Philosophy is vague. It's all guesses and interpretation, with the exception perhaps of pure logic. I like the purity of math. It's all a matter of preference.

I do as well, to some extent. However, let us never lose sight of the fact that any foundational axioms (e.g., ZFC) are decided upon on a purely philosophical basis. It is interesting to see such philosophical consideration around the "behavior" of truths when reading about Frege's early developments in propositional logic.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#67

Post by ndh2 »

stablemap wrote: post #5

Everyone I know who went to his MAA farewell address said it was wonderful. Definitely follow their link to read or hear the whole thing: https://mathyawp.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/mathematics-for-hu...

I find the headline and the article in the OP to be a bit misleading. This is not about the general public, or the relationship of individuals to mathematics. It's not a "hey, you should do more maths!" type of motivational speech.

The whole speech is addressed to the leaders of the math community, i. e. the teachers. It's a well-crafted plea for introspection, to find the humanity that was somehow lost along the way.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#68

Post by rhizome »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #52
GuiA wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, just like give anyone access to a library and they are much more likely to read magazines and romance novels than 19th century French literature. That's missing the point though. The point is access and opportunity. Even if only 5% become programmers, it's a net win overall (and that's not even counting the people who might play Candy Crush but still use the computer to better themselves in other ways - learnin…

Sure I agree, but remember, parent was wondering "if inmates have access to computers, would they become good programmers?"

A conversation based on competing generalizations is pretty thin gruel.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#70

Post by amelius »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #8

Based on all the supposed benefits of doing math, it sounds like people would be better off studying philosophy. Same benefits but a much broader appeal, and far more applicable to most people's everyday lives. When I finally "discovered" philosophy in college, I was angry that we hadn't been exposed to it at all in middle or high school. Instead, I'd been forced to waste years on things like math, biology, etc. that…

Philosophy, as it is typically taught, contains too much historical annotation and attribution to my taste. I want the factual/logical content only, not the "Wittgenstein said this" and the "Nietzsche said that", because it almost implies that I have to choose a side.
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