Why Study Math?

[Jonathan]

EllethValatari, I think your essay is interesting and worth considering.
(Though I agree with Midge about paragraphing. I actually cut and pasted your wall of text and introduced paragraphs myself to make it legible).

Am I getting your conclusion right? Your answer to "why study maths?" is (apart from it being practical) because maths is a kind of beauty and a way of coming closer to God?

I think practicality must always be the #1 reason for why math should be taught in schools. Poetry, another kind of beauty, isn't nearly as useful and thus can't be mandatory in the way maths classes are. Wouldn't the question "why study poetry?" elicit the same points, i.e. beauty and divinity (or the closeness thereof), without you having to deal with the sheer usefulness of the subject?

For the sake of correctness I thought I'd comment the following quote:

Originally Posted by (K.C. Cole, Geometry Rules the Universe)

“Mother Nature wears geometry on her sleeve, she spins the stars around in spirals, molds planets into perfect spheres, sends water undulating downstream in sine waves, pulls projectiles into neat parabolas and holds together the hydrogen atoms in water molecules at precisely 105 degrees”

While mathematics can definitely be found in nature, K.C. Cole is a bit too avid about it
Planets are far from perfect spheres. You touch on that subject yourself in the next paragraph when you write that there is no such thing as a perfect circle in nature.
Furthermore the angle of the hydrogen atoms in water is not "precisely 105 degrees". First, the number is rounded. Second, the angle varies constantly. 105 degrees however is the most stable angle. So at any given point, chances are biggest that the angle is about 105 in a water molecule, rather than any other angle.
Then there's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which seems to pervade the universe and shatter all hopes of perfection, statics and symmetry


Midge, it is actually not so probable that Adam and Eve knew that 2x3=6. Linguists and anthropologists have studied how an-alphabetic groups perceive language. Amongst other discoveries, it seems reading is a necessity for a group to even develop mathematics. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, aboriginal tribes in Australia had no written language and also no numbers! Words like "one" and "many" were sufficient. So indeed, it is possible to live and NOT know mathematics. At least it used to be