posted by Jonathan Kujawa in 3 Quarks Daily
As I’ve tried to convey over the years here at 3QD, mathematics is the bee’s knees. Like most apologias for mathematics, many of my essays tend to fall into one of two categories.
The extrinsic: on maths’ usefulness in real-world applications like internet searches, GPS technology, compression and recovery of images, encryption, the handling of large data, and the like. This is the reason my relatives (and most of my students) think math is worth learning.
The intrinsic: on maths’ beauty, universality, timelessness, ability to amaze and inspire awe, its endless depth and richness, and its ability to spark joy and fun. This is what drew me (and some of my students) to study maths and still motivates me today to teach and do research.
But there is a third quality of mathematics which I’ve never quite been able to articulate. I’ve only managed to sneak up on it from time-to-time. This is the humanity of mathematics. For some, humanity may seem more the purview of literature, music, art, psychology, sociology, or philosophy. Not mathematics. They would be wrong, though.
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PS from the comments
I just noticed the link to the zoomable Milky Way image is missing. Sorry about that! You can find it here.
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meaning, power, freedom, mathematics, humanity,
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