by Dan Hiland

Created on: December 16, 2009

While I’ve never been much of a fan of mathematics, there are times when it has its uses. Take for example the measuring cup or the yardstick. Without the discovery and development of a numbering system, mankind would never have come up with the weights and measures we now use for cooking, building and calculations.

One of the things math has never helped me understand, though, is how life works. For instance, in grade school and beyond, we were always having to solve those wretched word problems. You know the ones: Train A is going this fast and Train B is going that fast, and as such, which one will get to Lompoc first? 

Then there were the mixture problems where you had so many pounds of filberts and walnuts and peanuts, and you had to try and figure out how much it would all cost once it came out the other end of the funnel- not that I’d touch the stuff, since I hate walnuts with a passion.

Anyway, throughout the years, math has always been a stumbling block for me. And since numbers and integers and fractions will always be with us, I have tried to find a way to make being around them a little more palatable. The key, I think, lies in working with them in conjunction with other disciplines, like physics, philosophy, and science in general.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated with all those molecular models in science class. Chemistry is no stranger to math and formulas, but that mattered little to me, as long as I could look at pictures and plastic models of molecules, atoms, neutrons and the rest. The same held for the Periodic Table. All those acronyms- au, se, h, o, etc. I didn’t know an isotope from atomic weight, but it didn’t matter. The arrangement of the elements in the chart was what caught my eye.

And then there were the math puzzles and tricks, whose beauty lies in the fact that, like motorized vehicles, you don’t have to know how they work to operate or enjoy them. I can build a Möbius strip with the best of them, and when it is all finished, I can point with amazement to the line I have traced on one side of the paper, and when it eventually meets itself- so to speak- I can then wax scientific about how amazing it is to gaze upon a one-sided piece of paper.

Or we could discuss the merits of the fourth dimension, and ponder what it would be like to travel from Point A to Point B without using up any time.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have tried to learn about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

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