math as an art form

At its core, math is about problem solving. It is a very human endeavor based on something no one can define.

  • Problem Solving

    Anyone who has endured a mathematics course has encountered challenging problems whereby the experience of trial and error may have contributed towards the journey to a successful solution. Trial and error is often necessary on the adventure to success.

  • Math is human

    Math behaves like humans. When you talk about the flaws, students can be troubled because they start to realize that math is not a “pure” science. It has flaws and mistakes, just like humans.

  • Definition of Point

    A point cannot be defined other than to say that it is the intersection of two lines. A point has no thickness and no dimension – and yet when put together with itself, it creates thickness and dimension.

“People think mathematics is complicated. Mathematics is the simple bit. It’s the stuff we can understand. It’s cats that are complicated. I mean, what is it in those little molecules and stuff that make one cat behave differently than another, or that make a cat? And how do you define a cat? I have no idea.”  

— John H. Conway

Why Math is Important

Many people study math to get into a career. Others study math because they want to know how things work. I love turning people on to math when people tell me that they don’t need math. They feel like math is unnecessary – they never use it, or don’t experience math in their life. I ask them:

  • Have you ever bought a house

  • Have you ever negotiated the price or financing for a car

  • Do you get mail with your zip code on it

  • Do you ever wonder when a product says it “kills 99% of all germs”

 We don’t do a good job of teaching math to make people comfortable with it. Practicing math is as important as reading. Attention to mathematics can help folks argue using logic, save money, manage money, and prepare for the future. I think a lot about the word illiteracy – people care so much about being literate – yet people can be proud of being innumerate.

The best part about teaching mathematics for me is that it is always challenging and can always be improved. It’s a place where I have discovered that you do not truly understand something unless you can see it and explain it from different perspectives. I want to call that empathy. I enjoy trying to make the subject clear to my students, myself included. I am always learning. I continue to be surprised at some new insight or more solid understanding on a concept as I repeatedly teach some of the same courses. There is always something to learn.

WHERE MATH CAME FROM

We don’t teach the history of math. We don’t cut it up into little parts & pieces, talk about where things come from, the different parts of math that were created - in the same way that teachers of English do. We don’t talk about the flaws of math and the mistakes that were made.

One of the things that I enjoy most about mathematics is the stories upon stories you can find that explain how things were developed or where things came from. I teach mathematics because I find the subject fascinating through this lens, and it is a way to make it more interesting and accessible to human beings. There is a great satisfaction figuring out why things work. I love to study how symbols were developed. For example the “equals to” symbol was invented by Robert Recorde, who proposed it in a book in 1557, and it’s nice to give students the following passage and register their reaction:

MATH FAQs

 

Is math art?

I consider math an art form. Any art form you need to do often in order to get better at it. You need to keep practicing an art form and keep working at it to improve.

WHIch is bigger?

Comparing magnitudes can be very difficult for people without looking at a picture. It can hard to think about the the difference between 1 million and 1 billion - but it makes intuitive sense when you see a picture.

why people hate fractions

Fractions don’t make sense to your brain until you talk about parts of whole or see a model. Fractions as numbers, without modeling as parts of a whole, don’t mean anything to your brain.

Magic penny

If you had a choice between a million dollars, or a magic penny that will double every day for 30 days, which would you choose?