The Other Side of Math

               She asked her, “Hey, what course will you take?”, and she replied, “I’ll take biology to sail away from math.”

                She was so gleeful on the thought that finally, she could get away from math. But the naked truth is, biology exhibits an intimate relationship with mathematics. Quite frankly, everything does.

                When we wake up everyday, most of us first grab our cellphones and check the time, thinking of how more minutes we could still sleep. When we comb our hair, we are dreaded by the number of broken hairs on our combs. When we buy food for breakfast, we first check the price so that we will not be out of budget and starve at the end of the week.  These simple things in our daily routine testify the importance of math in our life.

                Different people have dissimilar levels of intelligence, and with that comes the different skill levels in mathematics. Oh how I wish we could run our life just like how it works in Sims 3:  with just a click, I could have easily enhanced my skill in math to the highest level, and ace all the tests in mathematics. No genes required; just pure effort. But whatever level your skill in math is, and how many exams in math you’ve aced, what’s important is that we know the basics in math.  But mathematics, just like everything is, didn’t magically appear from thin air. It was developed through years and years of living, triggered by the eon-long curiosity, and powered by the unique passion of the geniuses  in mathematics.

                To appreciate a thing better, one ought to know its history. In a video entitled The Story of Maths: The Language of the Universe, the thorough process from which mathematics had been developed was unveiled: starting from just the response to a need up to becoming today’s universal language.

                The part of the video series we watched tackled on the beginnings of math. It dwelt on how the early discoverers of math, namely Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks, first embraced the beauty of mathematics.

                From this video, one could also learn who were the who’s in math before, and how math came to be. It fascinates me how this gigantic mathematics sprouted only as a stimulus or response to the ancient Egypt’s need in knowing the schedule of the Nile River’s flooding, and how from a simple game I used to play, which was the Mankala or Sungka, opened the world of circles.

                Eventually, after many generations of blood and sweat, basic mathematics, like multiplying and adding, and higher mathematics, like solving equations, could now be done with just a simple manipulation of the calculator. This video made me appreciate mathematics more, and how much easier our situation is today compared to those during the ancient civilizations.

              

       Honestly, I have no fondness for mathematics. But like what they say, try to know it (or anything) first before you judge. Thanks to this video; I have come to meet the face of math that was once a stranger to me.  I was able to look at it through a different view. And finally, I now ponder on mathematics not with a frown, but with a smile. J