Is Math Real?

Is Math Real?: How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics’ Deepest Truths [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Eugenia Cheng, due August, 2023.

Cheng Is Math Real

“One of the world’s most creative mathematicians offers a new way to look at math—focusing on questions, not answers

Where do we learn math: From rules in a textbook? From logic and deduction? Not really, according to mathematician Eugenia Cheng: we learn it from human curiosity—most importantly, from asking questions. This may come as a surprise to those who think that math is about finding the one right answer, or those who were told that the “dumb” question they asked just proved they were bad at math. But Cheng shows why people who ask questions like “Why does 1 + 1 = 2?” are at the very heart of the search for mathematical truth.

Is Math Real? is a much-needed repudiation of the rigid ways we’re taught to do math, and a celebration of the true, curious spirit of the discipline. Written with intelligence and passion, Is Math Real? brings us math as we’ve never seen it before, revealing how profound insights can emerge from seemingly unlikely sources.”

Also: “I’m sad that the subject is so polarising, with some believing they are “maths people” and others convinced they’re bad at it. But very few aspects of human behaviour are so black and white. Our abilities might fall along a continuum, but the most important thing is that everyone can get better if they’re helped in the right way. You won’t necessarily believe that if you’ve been scarred by your experiences at school. But one thing I know is that when I help five- and six-year-olds with maths they typically scream with excitement, and only learn to fear it later. The basic problem, in my view, is that in our haste to convey content – fractions, percentages, algorithms – we don’t pay enough attention to feelings. Typical curriculums fail to imbue children with a love and appreciation of maths. This is not the teachers’ fault – the education system judges students on performance, not enjoyment. However, if we focus on content at the expense of feelings then that content is unlikely to stick. Worse, we end up producing maths-phobic or maths-sceptical people who then find it difficult to apply important logical and quantitative reasoning techniques in the real world. Just how dangerous this can be became clear during the pandemic.”—”What if nobody is bad at maths?“

Consider also:

  1. “We have pretended that there was no such thing as sex, no such thing as venereal disease, that our publicists were True Believers in Christianity, that our women were pure and our men brave; we have howled down every man who dared to hint the truth: we have sowed the wind of pious phrases, and we must reap the whirlwind of war. It has been the same in every drawer of our cupboard—and now the skeleton is out.”
  2. “MILLIONS of dollars have already been lost in the movies by the many errors indicated above; and it may be well to point out that the public recognizes that the business is everywhere approaching a grave crisis. You, gentlemen, who are still making money, take heed: you are going to lose it in another few months unless you learn a little something about good taste in matters of art.”
  3. “what particular body I currently occupy is trivia. The important thing is what I am Becoming.”
  4. “I am damned always to be separated from her and with her, in an oscillation”
  5. Full Worm Moon solo cello concert