Math and Its Applications

Sometimes when I meet new people and they asked me: “What is your major?” I answer: “I am a math major.” They always look amazed and compliment me like math is the toughest subject there is. Truth be told, I do not think that math is a hard subject but they probably had a very bad experience –professor with math-. Even myself –I am a math major- I still encounter bad professors. The key in teaching math is not making it look hard and complex but making it look easy and simple. After all, math is nothing but just simple game that anybody can play.

All the math knowledge we have till this point is based on two basic concepts: addition and numbers. Numbers are object that we use to count, measure or label. Addition is the combination of two quantities. These two basic concepts can define the rest of the mathematical definitions and theorems. For instance, subtraction is the addition of negative numbers. Of course it will take a big amount of time to rediscover the complex concepts such as calculus, which are just basic combinations of these two basic concepts. If math was a game this would be the basic rules.(c) Paintings Collection; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

However, math is not just a game but a tool with multiple applications. Mostly every science, even art, requires the use of math because mostly anything in our world is quantifiable. Physics uses math to make relations between phenomena. Renaissance artists used math to find the perfect proportions. All though these are general uses of math to me the most useful area is statistics.

I like to defined statistics as the most manipulative element of math. Mostly every marketing campaign has at least one data like “Nine out of ten dentists recommend this gum.” Although in the previous example is use as a rhetorical element there are more ways than statistics can be manipulative. Statistics are used by different, professionalism from economists to biologist, to make predictions. A prediction’s accuracy depends mostly on the rate of success – and of course you would have to define “success” in an appropriate context- but knowing just that it is incredibly helpful. If you know that you are not going to succeed think of ways that you can increase the success rate. For instance, if you want to increase the rate of success in passing an exam you should study for it.

Math has also offered me a great skill: identify patterns. In mathematics patterns are used in order to approach problems and then solved them. For instance, I barely know anything about computer science but this skill helped me to code my professional portfolio. However I intent to give this skills the purpose of deciphering codes. This skill is going to play an important role later in my career track since codes are written in specific patterns.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Math has infinite abilities to offer the application you give them is your choice. Although it might seem complex at first my advice for you is to think as math as a game and follow the rules. If you are able to see it this way then all those complex problems you had will become piece of cake.

 

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