It took me 25 years to love math. I hated it all along till then. Why wouldn’t I?
As a kid, I never scored the holy 100/100 that the toppers did. My mom, who was apparently good at math as a kid, used to call me *dumb *when I made silly mistakes. Words I now realise can sometimes leaves scars that don’t heal for decades.
Math was the reason I didn’t get into the top batches at IIT coaching, to which all my friends moved to, but I was left behind. You’d hate math too if you were me at that time wouldn’t you?
Math used to just feel like rigmarole. Divide this, move this to the other side, if you see this pattern apply that procedure, blah this, bluh that.
Plus, schools used to skip all the interesting stories and focus on just the equations. For example:
- Solve
x/(1-x) = π/4 - You and your friend like to bake cakes. You like circles, he likes squares. How do you divide your dough so that both your cakes fit in the boxes of same size.
They’re both referring to the same thing, but why the fuck should I care about x ?
Another example:
Derivative of x^n is nx^(n-1)
Almost everyone just memorizes the formula and never care about why this is so. When you do realize this by drawing things on paper, it just opens your mind and you go ahhhh!
The inflection point
My outlook towards math changed after all the testing was done with. Schools, colleges, interviews. It’s ironic because that’s when most people stop their math learning and I started mine.
I started to learn math, because I simply wanted to understand things better. Now I don’t care whether I am faster, smarter or better than the other guy. I just learn it for myself.
That’s when the beauty truly emerged. Math can move you as much as poetry. Believe me!
Math is about intuition, about expression, about imagination and so many things more. A lot of disciplines ranging from physics to economics can be expressed and learnt through math.
https://xkcd.com/435/
Where I’m now
For the past few years I’ve regularly been dealing with math in programming. It brings a rigor to problem solving that is not possible by other means. You can reason with confidence and execute scientifically.
Machine learning is at its fundamental level plain calculus after all. At 3dify.me, we employ oodles of matrix math using numpy to mangle 3D objects. DCC, the software I wrote to color correct dive footage is just a fancy way of manipulating matrices again.
So yeah, math is no longer an area of trouble of me. Even unbelievable that it is has become an avenue for joy.
Some pointers if you’re interested
If you’re feeling intrepid and excited to jump into the world of math, I’ll leave you with some links.
3Blue1Brown : A fantastic Youtube channel that talks about intuition in math. Brilliant.org : Learn math by doing + lots of fun A Mathematician’s Apology : A beautiful essay that talks about pursuing math for math’s sake.
Happy math to you!