Why you should learn Mathematics?
If someone asked you, What was your most hated subject in school? What would you reply?
Maths would be my reply in a heartbeat.
Why do we need those complex equations?
What was the point of even considering the negative values in these formulas?
What do we need those trigonometric equations for?
These were some of the questions that used to haunt my heart as I was trying to do mathematics.
But as I grew up, I realised some of the proper use of them and the actual reason for teaching and learning mathematics.
How long have people been learning maths?
Quite long actually, as you might have heard of it in the school times early philosophers have been using maths.
It was fascinating to know that archaeologists had found the Sumerian era’s oldest surviving records of using maths (1900 BCE and before).
They had developed a sexagesimal system of counting, which is still being used today to measure time and angles.
The Sexagesimal was later adopted by ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, who also developed the way of hierographic numerals and other methods of noting down numerals.
While the reason for the Sumerians, Ancient Egyptians and Babylonians were to use maths for practical purposes, the Greeks differed.
The Greeks were more interested in seeking mathematics to understand the world around them. Greeks also used a base-10 number system and developed the concept of proof and deduction.
Greek mathematicians, such as Pythagoras, Archimedes, and Euclid, contributed significantly to areas like geometry, trigonometry, and calculus.
The Role of Mathematics in the life of Ancient Chinese people was different and was meant to be especially used in agriculture, astronomy, and engineering.
The oldest record of the multiplying table was also found in the era of ancient Chinese civilisation.
Similarly, Mathematics played a significant role in Ancient Indian culture and society, especially in astronomy, religion, and philosophy.
The Indians used a base-10 number system and developed the decimal place-value system, which the Arabs and Europeans later adopted.
The oldest known text on Indian mathematics is the Sulba Sutras, which dates back to around 800 BCE and contains rules for constructing altars used in religious rituals.
And the power displayed by mathematics has never been lower till now; in the face, as we get to know the power of data, the need for maths has been exponentially increasing. (foreshadowing of another blog post?)
How does practising Mathematics affect us?
Practising maths is also a healthy habit that we should adopt; regularly practising maths helps us in many ways.
- Improved mental health: As we know, maths help childhood to increase the rate of gaining and in old age to reduce decline of cognitive abilities.
- Add critical skills: Maths also helps add essential skills such as problem-solving and logical reasoning by forcing us to think logically and sometimes out of the box as we had to solve a problem by learning or applying a concept entirely new way.
- Confidence boosting: regularly practising maths also helps take a tangential point to our character by allowing us to know one of the essential skills, confidence, in our life. Becoming familiar with tackling challenges and problems helps build a great personality.
What heights can my career reach after learning maths?
Now that is something that needs no explanation; I am sure we all had some inkling that maths is helpful to our career.
There are many fields can one can do after learning mathematics.
- Actuarial Science.
- Data Scientist.
- Economist.
- Market research analyst.
- Mathematics teacher.
These are some of the few names; these are all very well-rewarding careers with significant monetary compensation. (Now, money isn’t everything but money is a necessary factor in life)
The application of mathematics is more expansive than just maths nowadays. Multiple interdisciplinary research and projects have opened various interdisciplinary career fields.
- Architect.
- Climatologist.
- Bioinformatics Specialist.
- Risk Analyst.
- Database developer
These fields are not primarily focused on maths but rely on knowledge of maths.
How can we use maths in our daily life?
Maths has become an integral part of our life, where we can keep track of many things; to be fair, as I have stated in the paragraph above, the fundamental use of maths was to help us in our daily life.
- Budget making: It is one of the most important uses of mathematics in our daily life as it helps us understand the usage of our money. It requires the usage of basic arithmetic and percents calculation.
- Cooking: It is one of the most critical uses of maths in everyday life(in my opinion) because we can understand the effect of an unproportioned salt in their food. Still, another aspect of maths that helps in cooking is understanding the algorithm that must be followed to achieve a great result. This logic building is also a part that can be trained with maths.
- Sports: The usage of maths is also evident in sports; now, I don’t mean the superpower to calculate all the probabilities and achieve success in one go, but learning and training your cognition and logic-building skills which help you make an efficient decision based on your current circumstances.
- Time Management: Another skill that is improved and enhanced by the practice of mathematics as it improves your reasoning, air thematic application and record keeping, which are crucial in valuing your time.
How maths helps in boosting our creativity?
Math promotes creativity is a counterargument to the rigid and logical-based maths advocates as Maths is filled with creativity.
These are a subset of the more considerable maths set that helps boost our creativity.
- Using probabilities to predict an uncured event’s outcome drives a lot of creativity.
- In painting, the value of ratios and proportions was carefully studied as they were exponential in producing great art.
- Ratios, proportions, symmetry, and sequences were prevalent in sculpting and architecture.
- In music, numbers and series are fixed with an undifferentiable bond that helps produce a great composition.
The Article of Zulie Rane is also a great guide to the act of boosting creativity.
After all maths is such a wonderful language that
As such, you can see that Mathematics is diverse with applications worldwide. It helps us in the professional field and creativity.
Practising Mathematics is also good for your health and a tremendous skill-building exercise.
So whenever you are free or wish to keep your mind off something, try doing some maths; it’ll be helpful.
And you never know that you might start to like it (if you do not love it already)
(I hope you all find all the mathematical puns that I have applied in the blogpost)
