As I wrap up the second year of the For Math’s Sake column, I want to get at some broad questions about mathematics I’ve been mulling over and share some thoughts that will hopefully lay the groundwork for more in-depth articles in the coming school year. (I should also note that you, the reader, are more than welcome to suggest mathematical topics you’d like me to cover! Feel free to reach out if this is the case.)
Something that’s been subtly ingrained into my psyche over the years of studying mathematics and other math-heavy fields is that it provides us humans with a universal language. One of the common features of the earliest civilizations was some sort of number system, which they used for exchanging goods, tallying up foods or raw materials, and keeping track of time. These practical tasks came along with the actual mathematics that some of the highest-level civilizations were doing and continued into the modern era.
As math has become standardized around the world, today, we may have no idea what a piece of text or a speech recording in some language we don’t know is saying. But people who speak different languages could both write down an equation and, if they are familiar enough with mathematics, know exactly what each other means.
This is the hard part about making a claim like “math is a universal language,” however. We have to be familiar with mathematics at the level of the equation or expression to actually understand what it’s saying. Very few people can do this for Einstein’s field equations or the Standard Model Lagrangian, which are supposed to describe fundamental aspects of reality. However, with COVID’s disruption to in-person learning, students at all levels showcased dips in the understanding of much more basic mathematics, and underrepresented groups continue to struggle in mathematics despite efforts to improve.
What I plan to look into more in the coming year are the specific ways in which mathematics education is flawed. I think a big part of the problem involves the history of mathematics. Like all forms of history, it is written by the most powerful at the grave expense of the rest, but we can’t come to terms with math’s history if it’s never really covered in mathematics courses. For anything that’s “universal”—music and visual art come to mind—it still helps to know at least a little about the pioneers and visionaries who discovered such things in order to connect with it in a more holistic sense. The most abstract math may be beautiful to some, but it’s lost on the public, especially if they’re given the impression that it’s evidence of some divine law when it doesn’t help them pay the bills.
Despite the negatives, I remain optimistic that math can become a more universal language. Mathematics remains the best tool we have for understanding the fundamentals and expanding the frontiers of the natural sciences. Its practicality in those everyday tasks may seem less and less relevant with the growing power of AI, along with the wealth of other technologies from the calculator on your phone to the budget tracker on your banking app, but the logic and reasoning skills built from a good basis in math remain innately helpful and innately human.
I’ll end with best wishes to all of you as you approach finals – many of you will likely have at least one final involving some math, and this can bring up feelings ranging from excitement (probably just me) to utter dread. Whatever you may be feeling is valid (unless you’re excited like me, in which case you’re probably crazy). But Stevens is a place of great thinkers, and this is the best trait one can have in order to excel in mathematics.
