Monday, March 16, 1998
Math integral to work, life
Respect students devoting lives to numbers to enhance your
existence
By Lindsey Chen
Continuing its tradition of churning out opinions based on
ignorance and screwed logic, the Daily Bruin Viewpoint section
scored once again with Daniel Inlender’s "It’s time to look beyond
the numbers" (Mar. 10). Last time, it was a white guy who thinks
all whites are racists, now it’s a science student who trivializes
the importance of calculus.
Yes, Inlender, I’m a math student and no, I’m not going to make
"derogatory comments" concerning your mother. Like you, I had an
aversion to math when I was in grade school, and I agree with you
that human worth and intelligence should not be quantified. But
what ignorance and ingratitude you displayed when you wrote,"We
should be trying to produce people who are good at life, not just
physics: People who are happy and don’t shake in fear like an
epileptic pig."
Perhaps you should think twice the next time you sip your
cappuccino while surfing the Internet or fidget with all your cool
new techno-gadgets. In case you don’t know, some of those "stressed
out, obsessive folks who … eat Fig Newtons and do calculus
problems for five hours" are the very people who make your life
more convenient and enjoyable.
Instead of getting admiration for their patience in trying to
understand and later applying their knowledge to real life, they
get contempt from someone who thinks they’re wasting their time
doing mindless calculations. These people sit and study for hours
because they actually care about learning the material.
You may find formulas, like F=ma, to be a bunch of meaningless
letters, but to math students, these are powerful concepts that
have a far-reaching impact on all natural phenomena. They are the
ones who will be able to develop the technologies that you will
take for granted. And for your information, a lot of them do know
how to enjoy life and don’t need you to remind them of that.
Since you’re so fond of Benjamin Hoff’s "The Tao of Pooh,"
here’s a quote from its companion book, "The Te of Piglet": "Once
you make a habit of Observing, Deducing and Applying you may sense
a pathway opening up ahead of you – or inside of you, or both –
leading to a deeper understanding of things." I think this truly
describes the feeling that students get when they finally
understand a math concept. They realize that what seems dull and
meaningless at first is actually quite elegant and useful.
Maybe instead of whining about tests in which "three hours of
work is crammed into 43 minutes," you should try to sit down and
spend more time learning the stuff. By the way, if you really are
interested in Taoism, I suggest that you read the original text and
not just the Cliff’s Notes version of it. Like you said, "you have
to figure out things in life on your own, for yourself."
"But isn’t the knowledge that comes from experience more
valuable than the knowledge that doesn’t?" Well, that’s true only
to a certain degree. If you’re referring to personal experiences
such as dealing with the loss of a loved one, then I agree this
kind of experience is more valuable if experienced firsthand rather
than merely reading about it in literature. However, scientific
knowledge must precede experience in order to make it possible.
For example, pre-med students spend hours memorizing the names
of body parts not because they prefer cramming all those Latin
words in their brain over going out and "experiencing life," but
because they’ll know what to look for when someone tells them to
"cm the corpus callosum."
Similarly, one must be proficient in the language of calculus in
order to participate in a research experience program in say, fluid
mechanics or sound waves.
That mathematical research will be important in the next century
is an undeniable truth. Research on number theory or, if you
prefer, "knowledge for the sake of numbers," continues to lend
insight to the field of computer science.
Furthermore, differential equations provide powerful tools for
scientists and engineers studying dynamical systems. Thus, to
trivialize the importance of calculus and to say that "there’s
definitely something wrong with (numbers’) paramount importance in
our educational system" is to mock the foundation by which advanced
civilization is based upon.
I admit that most of the math students, like myself, will
probably never use Fourier series or contour integrals after we
graduate and thereby have wasted all those time doing pages of long
and boring problem sets.
But what we do get from the study of mathematics is an
appreciation for its sheer logic, for its contribution to other
sciences, for its advancement to humanity, and in essence, for
life.
Oh, Mr. Inlender, you had such good intentions. But all you had
in your column was a great thesis ("There are no formulas that can
solve life’s problems") and nothing else to support it. Instead,
you decided to trash your fellow South-campus neighbor.
As for your suggestion, no, it is not my kind who need to look
beyond numbers. That is the goal of all math students. Rather, it
is you who need to look beyond numbers in order to discover its
simple beauty and wide-range of applicability. As your venerable
Lao Tze suggested, "See simplicity in complexity," (You did read
the whole book, didn’t you?).
On a final note, I would just like to say this: Mr. Inlender,
you may know your psychology and biology forward and backward, but
if you still think that calculus is a book full of meaningless
scribble, then your bachelor’s degree in psychobio is going to be
literally just that because you do not truly understand what
science is about.