We all know that our doctor has a medical degree, and our lawyer has a law degree, because those are specific, well-defined professions that require equally specific training. But you don't find brass plaques on buildings advertising a licensed mathematician within, who, for a large fee, will solve any math problems that you need help with.
He goes on to comment that mathematicians and maths are not noticed in the real world. Basically what we do and who we are is taken for granted. People assume that their computers are all the work of computer scientists, but they don't necessarily realise that a lot of computer science is actually maths. A lot of gene technology is actually maths and we wouldn't know much about space (or our own world) if it wasn't for mathematicians of the past.
I find it frustrating sometimes when I tell people I'm a maths student. The blank look on their face along with a certain amount of fear in their eyes. They often say that they could never do it because they were never any good at maths in school. If I had believed my primary school teacher Mrs H, maybe I would also be one of them. Maybe I wouldn't have a degree in maths if I had believed her. A small part of me wants to go and find her and show her my degree certificate and say,
"do you know what Mrs H, I got a degree in mathematics despite you telling me I'd never get anywhere unless I learnt my times tables..... and I still don't know them!"
The thing is the stuff you learn in maths classes at school is mostly how to add, subtract, times and divide things. There is also a lot of other stuff, but at university level you get told to forget most of what you've been taught so far because a lot of it was just lies. They tell lies to kids in school about maths (and other subjects) because the truth is just too complex to cover in the time they have your attention for. Also the range of maths is much broader once you get to university level.
At most universities (certainly in the UK) there will be the option to study some statistics, some pure mathematics (algebra and calculus - i.e. lots of funny letters and symbols instead of "proper numbers") and of course applied mathematics. Applied mathematics can cover a whole range of topics from the mathematics of biology (why tigers have stripes and how disease spreads) to discrete mathematics (binary code, password quality, code making/breaking etc) or mechanics (movement of solids, or indeed liquids or gases).
Of course there are also many other applications of mathematics. If I were to mention all of them here this post may never end.
My course falls under the engineering department, but I still class myself as a mathematician. A lot of what I do is still mathematics. I think that I will always think of myself as a mathematician. No matter how much I learn about engineering or whether or not I get a job in my field. Deep inside me is the heart of a mathematician and it skips a beat when I read about a particularly exciting concept or solve a big problem.
3 comments:
What you've said struck a lot of notes with me, there's a big kid inside me who gets excited at the prospect of shuffling some symbols around (either on paper or in my mind) to reach an elegant solution to something.
And yes - software engineering owes one heck of a lot to maths (yes, I'm a qualified software engineer for those that don't know).
I quite agree that mathematicians don't seem to get shiny brass plaques outside their 'home from home'. Yet, expanding on your point, it seems that most (if not all) of the applications of maths get some sort of recognition.
Being an engineer, I tend to look upon my self as an applied physicist more than a mathematician. But where would I be if I could not model things?!
Even so, I also share that satisfaction gained from coming up with some nice neat way of expressing something horrendously complicated. For instance, I admit that I actually enjoyed deriving the noise to signal ratio of an FM signal. It took me the best part of 30 minutes; but while that may not be amazing in itself, I found it was the process I went through to get there that was the enjoyable part. Every time I did it :-s
So I do believe that mathematicians should get more public credit for their work. The trouble is, would anyone be able to understand what they have done to get that credit?
Thanks for the comments!
Lee, I think applied physics is very similar to applied maths in many ways. Take for instance my Rheology module last year that was taught by the maths department to both undergraduate mathematicians and postgraduate physicists. It's just a label and I prefer to call it maths when I apply it to myself. If you want to call it physics when you talk about yourself, that's fine too.
I think it's up to us as the younger generation of mathematicians/physicists/engineers etc to change the perception of these occupations.
It's not just fiddling with letters, symbols and numbers to get to your answer. It's being able to draw and/or imagine the problem you're trying to solve.
Had Einstein not thought to imagine himself travelling through space on a particle of light we may not have the theory of relativity.
This is the kind of thing we have to show people.
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