The Unmuddled Mathematician

The Top 10 Things About Being a Mathematician

By Chris Coray, The Unmuddled Mathematician

David Letterman retired last week.  He was the originator of a daily “Top 10” list.  With that on my mind, as well as the death this weekend of famous mathematician John Nash (he of “A Beautiful Mind) here are my top 10 things about being a mathematician:

#10—Given my skill set, what else could I have done that would have provided a living for me and my family?  I mean mathematics is just a game and I got to play it all my life.  And feed my family.  What a deal.

#9—My wife has never had to learn fractions or use a calculator.  For 49 years she has had an audio one whom she has to occasionally feed.  For example, recipe portions sometimes have to be changed.  For her the answer to this and other problems has been only a question away.  From my side the food has been really good.

#8—Having no competition in “King of the Nerds” competitions throughout school.

#7—Never having a boss.  A non-mathematician never asks a mathematician what he is doing.  That’s because he will get an answer that makes no sense whatsoever and expose the boss as not understanding everything.

#6—Being able to create puzzles.  For example, dear readers, here is a puzzle for you.  Monopoly is a game.  It has rules, made up ones, and a board with 40 squares.  So I ask you, “Are there two squares on a monopoly board with the property that if your piece begins a turn on one of the squares it cannot reach the other square in a single legal turn?”  This includes rolling doubles, using the Chance and Community Chest cards, and all other rules.  Is this useful information?  Nope.  Might it be fun to consider?  Maybe.

#5—Working as a teacher, which meant a life around young, interested people.  Teaching, like farming and fishing, has its own intrinsic value.  And being around young people is a perfect joy.

#4—Thinking of creative ways to mumble.  I never liked being asked what I did for a living.  When it happened I would mumble in an inarticulate way, hoping the question would go away.  If pressed, I would finally answer and in almost all cases produced an answer like this, “Oh, that was my hardest subject”.   As though that was somehow a failure.  I never want to cause that reaction.  We all have talents.  Mine are just weird.  So I can mumble in 7 languages (or non-languages), but I cannot sing a lick.  Many of you could fairly think of my columns as pretty much mumbling. 

#3—Knowing about the 5 magic numbers we have made up throughout thousands of years.  They are wonderful to consider, each of the 5.  Go ahead, ask me about them sometime.  You have the right to shut me down when you have had enough.

#2—Expanding my ability to consider and ponder the universe in which we live.  The more I learn the more I understand how much more there is to know, and how magnificent it is, and learning is part of a great journey.

#1—This last and best one I never saw coming but it is the greatest of all.  Bobbie and are blessed with 3 granddaughters.  They have now grown to an age where the mathematics in their schoolwork has gone beyond the capacity of our daughters to help.  So now, quite often but never more than I would like, the phone rings and I hear the voice of one of the special 3 as she says, “Grandpa, this is Savannah (or Jade or Carmen), can you help me with my math assignment?”  First, I always tell my granddaughter how much I love to hear her voice and how much I love her and what a special thing it is for me to be her grandpa.  Then we do the work together.  But each of these three know that far more than being the math helper the most important thing in our relationship is that I am their grandfather and I love them.   Had I known how much this time with my grandchildren would come to mean to me I would have laughed all the way through the long, hard path to becoming the unmuddled mathematician.