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Sunday, February 22, 2015

The Unmuddled Mathematician

Some Good Things About Being A Mathematician
By Chris Coray, The Unmuddled Mathematician

When I became a mathematician I entered an occupational monastery.  Hardly any person ever asked questions about the content of my profession.  Certainly not at home around the dinner table, as in “What did you do today, daddy?”  That question didn’t get asked.  Being essentially a monk, my wife is responsible for whatever small skill set I have in the social area.  Mathematicians have well and fairly earned our “true geek” reputations.  On the other hand my wife has never had to own or use a calculator.  She just asks her live-in model for answers and they magically appear.  On the down side she does have to feed me.
But there are also some really positive features in this line of work.  For example, there seem to be arguments about what is taught in history or political science, or in any subject where some people see a “Liberal” or “Conservative” bias and insist on change because they are not happy.  Not mathematics, although some people are unhappy exploring its majesty.  It is what it is.  And mathematicians do not argue with each other about mathematics based on opinion.  Something can be proved,  it false, or it is just a conjecture to be pondered.  It is sort of amazing that I have been able to provide for my family and do so with great joy while just playing a mental game.  And a giant benefit I did not see coming was my chance to stay close and active with my grandchildren who much prefer me to their parents for the math help they need.  This joy is beyond my capacity to express in words.
Speaking of expression, however, mathematicians are generally very careful in what they write and say.  Often I will laugh out loud at words of others when no humor was intended.  For example, a guy today (claiming wisdom) said that in spite of the cold, 21 million gallons of water is going over Niagara Falls”.  Did he mean 21 million gallons a second?, a minute?, a year?, a century?  He didn’t say.  For this guy, volume and rate must mean the same thing, a bad notion.  Be careful what you say.  Here are a couple of other suggestions:
Never use the phrase, “XXXXXX may or may not occur”.  That statement is always true and has no content, as in, “The sun may or may not come up tomorrow”.  Yep.  What did you learn from that line?
Don’t use the letters irregardless in speech or writing.   Those letters do not form a word.   People have also recently become fond of answering a question, “Absolutely!” when “Yes”, without an exclamation point, is better.  Avoid using “like” and “you know” when all you are doing is filling an empty space in speech with a meaningless noise without purpose.  When teaching a class and responding to a student question I would hold up fingers on my hand at each such use by the questioner of those two phrases (mostly “like”).  Watching my hand would often bring the questioner and question to a complete stop before it was finished, after which I would encourage another attempt, using the King’s English.  The students got better in an astounding hurry.
And while I have learned how to text so as to stay close to the precious grandchildren, the ultra-short phonetic mangling of language by most texters, including acronyms, is painful to me.  Add the word “old” to the phrase “true geek” and you get closer to an accurate description of yours truly.  Will I have to add the following objects to my language?  Lol,  u,  r,  ttyl, and many others not yet understood.  Maybe I can make up some of my own, as in, fwg, talb, htrtl, dmwb.  For the inexperienced these stand for fishing was good, that’s a lovely boat, how’s the road to Logan, don't mess with Bob!
C u in 2 w  (see you in two weeks).

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