"Well, it's happening," I announced to the general populace this morning. The populace was my family members. They were eating breakfast, while I was elbow-deep in algebra homework. As usual, my folders, pens, pencils both blunted and sharpened, calculator, various napkins and a yogurt encrusted bowl occupied about half the table. I was plotting the points of an exponential function. "I'm officially becoming a math nerd."
My Dad gave a chuckle. "Now that's one thing you'll never be, Cass." "What if I told you I graphed an exponential function in my journal last night to illustrate my feelings about life?" I asked. "Ok, well that's...ok. Maybe you are." I grinned. I'll never be a math whiz, but suddenly I see meaning in math I've never seen before.
Here we are at the end of the semester. Only one test stands between me and the final. And I don't really feel like I'm going to war anymore. It's more like coming admire the enemy.
Here's something I never thought I'd hear myself say: When we've exhausted words, we still have numbers. I can't say I've entirely exhausted words, because here I am still blogging, but I must say I was shocked to find a new medium in which to express myself. A new language, if you will. Another code that represents a picture of what is in my mind. Because really, that's all that letters and words are too.
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5 comments:
Cassie - you are the sort of person psychologists dream of analyzing.
:-)
I'll just be glad to have my dining table back. :)
Love you,
Mom
Yes! That is what math is! A language, but not merely a human tongue. Algebra is the alphabet and calculus the vocabulary in which all the glory and wonder of the material universe is written. Everything from the dances of the stars in their courses to the singing of the birds has some additional beauty hidden in the pure elegance of the laws that govern it, an elegance that appears only when one can speak the language of mathematics.
Wow, Stephen! I start talking about math and you wax poetic! I've never seen that side of you before! Thanks for commenting.
Yeah, I kept looking back at what I'd written and thinking "Maybe I overdid that." Oh well. :) Anyway, there is a certain amount of truth in what I say, and I think you are beginning to recognize it, which is very, very cool. You're the first non-mathmatician I've known who really began to recognize it.
Also, your point about having numbers when you have run out of words is a very true one. You would not believe how much my engineering friends and I are able to communicate with each other via mathematical analogies, simply because you can construct a mathematical analogy for anything at all once you know some math.
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