Math is Hard.
I hear it all the time. “Math makes my head hurt.” “I love math, but it’s hard.” I listen. Of course I listen. I even sympathise. Math IS hard. Math IS complicated.
Math is complicated because the universe is complicated.
Look. If there’s one thing- just one thing, that I want to be remembered for saying in my lifetime, it’s this: Math and Art are the same thing.
Seriously. Math is an effort to boil down the essence of a relationship in the universe, between objects, forces, spaces, whatever’s going on at the time. To make it understandable, reproducible. Art is the same thing. Art is the reduction and comprehension of forces- colour, shape, movement, psychological shapes and colours and movements, too- and the attempt to make them understandable to someone standing outside. (This is why the best way to appreciate a painting is with a chair; so that you have time to really examine the ramifications of the equation the painting represents.)Math is hard, because the world is hard. Math is also hard because we are taught, from childhood, that math is a separate entity of its own, a thing you are either good at or you aren’t.
This is nonsense. If no one ever told you before, I will tell you now: this is bunk.
No one ever tells you that speech is something you “get” or you don’t, that walking is something some people don’t have the capacity to get good at. Lots and lots of people are terrible at interpersonal relationships; you don’t see too many of them standing on the sidelines. People drive cars even though they’ve never looked under the hood. Basic use of numbers is something everyone can learn, and most people walking this planet have even more capability than that.
Math is hard, but so is playing the piano, right? Not everyone will be a concert mathemetician, but anyone can learn to do the basics. And the basics for most can run really, really high.
I get scared when people say they can’t do math. Which math? Balancing a checkbook? Calculating the escape velocity of a rocket? Counting change? Telling time? There is so much math everywhere that this is like saying, “I can’t understand language.”
I’m taking this math class now. I enjoy it, even though the outcome of each class is me going home with paper and a pencil and learning math off the internet for five hours. Trust me, the streets are a weird place to learn your math. But it works. Math is learnable.
Art is also learnable. Van Gogh saw things in sunflowers and starry nights that overwhelmed him, and from the depths and distances of what he was chasing, he brought back pictures of the shape of things that’ll haunt us for the rest of humanity’s lifespan. He saw it, and he brought back pieces of it alive. It’s not different from what the mathemeticians do- it’s just done with a brush instead of chalk. Same function, different brain region. The brain is amazingly plastic in its singleminded pursuit of cataloguing and comprehending the universe.
I’m considering including some basic math instruction here, but right now, I’m more interested in convincing artists to take another crack at algebra or statistics, and mathemeticians to go re-examine Calder and Van Gogh.
Go ahead. I’ll be here when you get back. Harvard students don’t need more art; they need more understanding of what art is, and why these sciences are so much a part of the same adventure. If I only come up with one original idea in my life, let that be it: You’re on the same road. They’re the same thing. No one- NO ONE- is bad at math. You have the same amount of struggle, you just climb the scale of what you’re willing to struggle with. No one encourages a violinist to set down the instrument forever after their first concert; don’t drop math after you finally pass the basics. You don’t have to be an astronomer or a physicist to need to understand the world around you.
And, oh, it is a vast and wonderful world!
One Response to “Math is Hard.”
blinder - November 20th, 2009
i couldn’t agree more, the art/math being different sides to the same coin. i’m going to make a bit of a leap here, and abstract math out to programming… if i listened to everyone growing up, there is no way i should be a programmer.
but through *working* at it, i got to be pretty good at it. the same is true with math. math isn’t any different than art. you just have to work at it.
also with my art/graphics background, i’ve found that i make a better programmer/architect… because i’ve trained my brain to also think in abstracts, of bigger pictures, of being able to see the picture, in its finished state, before its even started. many programmers don’t have this ability and often get mired in the details (which don’t get me wrong, details are important) and lose sight of what the bigger objective.
so yes, math is learnable as art is learnable. both just take a lot of practice to get good at.
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