Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Opinion / All math. All the time
BackBack

All math. All the time

For my money, what's most fascinating about mathematicians is that they search all the time, everywhere, for patterns

Photo: iStockPremium
Photo: iStock

Sometimes when my mother crosses the street, she gets halfway and then waits. She waits, there in the middle of the road with cars and buses and rickshaws and motorbikes streaming past her in every direction; she waits, because a stream of yahoos in cars will not stop, nor even slow down, to let her get the rest of the way across.

No, I take that back. Some of those yahoos actually get their kicks from speeding up, so they can close even the smallest possible gap that she might use. They speed up, so they can make sure she doesn’t get across before they get across.

I hear it said a lot, more so after I started writing this column a few years ago. You know: “Oh, when it comes to math, I’m just one big zero!" and “I can’t do numbers!" and the like—and these claims are often made with broad smiles that make me wonder, would these guys ever say, through the same broad smile, “I can’t do letters"? But more than that, I want to tell them, nobody is a zero at math. Because we’re doing it all the time, every day, as we motor through our lives.

Case in point, any given one of the yahoos. In a split second, he’s looked through his windscreen at my mother, considered his speed and worked out that he needs to increase it if he has to have any chance of foiling the frail 82-year-old brazenly trying to interfere with his free-and-easy cruise along Turner Road.

Not a trivial calculation. Yet, we all do something like it all the time on our streets, if with different motivations. You want to cross, you look at the traffic and calculate whether you’ll make it before being mowed down. You’re driving and it’s raining, you unconsciously drop a little further behind the car in front, allowing some leeway if you need to brake.

All math. All the time.

Trying to decide between courses of medication for your sick child, when each has different side-effects? You’re balancing their risks and benefits against each other.

Sending one final WhatsApp message as the battery on that flashy new smartphone fades? You’ve stacked your typing speed up against the time till the phone dies.

Peering at one of those maps in Mumbai locals that show every Western Railway station lined up and equally spaced? You’re mapping that image to the physical reality of the world outside, in which Churchgate, Grant Road and Bandra certainly don’t form a straight line, and your train certainly doesn’t stop at the precisely calibrated intervals those equal spaces might suggest.

All math. All the time.

But here’s the thing. In each of these situations, it’s not as if you’re actually manipulating numbers. You didn’t measure 2 minutes and 34 seconds between Charni Road and Grant Road, multiply by 4 and then leap off the train exactly 10 minutes and 16 seconds later in the belief that you have reached Elphinstone Road, only to find yourself face down in filth beside the tracks.

And if you’re that yahoo, you certainly didn’t say to yourself: “I’m driving at 46kmph, looks like the lady is 57m ahead, that means I’ll reach her in 4.4609 seconds, which is just enough time for her to walk across, so I better speed up to 67kmph right away and keep her in her place, dammit!"

No: what you did instead were things like estimation (the only way a yahoo can instantly decide to speed up), or weighing risk (which drug is better for your kid), or reasoning (four stations to Elphinstone, not four equal time slices). These are tools that get us through our lives, and these are also tools that mathematicians use every day.

For my money, what’s most fascinating about mathematicians is that they search all the time, everywhere, for patterns.

Patterns among numbers—for example, in how primes, or prime pairs (that differ by 2), occur. Patterns in large aggregations of data that can then tell stories—the monsoon will arrive five days late, or eating one extra egg a week lifts a child above the threshold of malnutrition—take note, you various chief ministers—or even that this data you’re examining is itself fake.

Patterns in the ways atomic particles interact, which say things about the properties of materials. Patterns in the light emitted by distant galaxies, from which we deduce they are moving away from us and that tells us how old the universe is. (Really).

A truly heartfelt tribute to this fascination with patterns came from the actress and mathematician Danica McKellar: “One of the most amazing things about mathematics is the people who do math aren’t usually interested in application, because mathematics itself is truly a beautiful art form. It’s structures and patterns, and that’s what we love, and that’s what we get off on."

I think about that sometimes. Especially when my mother comes face-to-face with what yahoos in cars get off on instead.

Once a computer scientist, Dilip D’Souza now lives in Mumbai and writes for his dinners. A Matter of Numbers explores the joy of mathematics, with occasional forays into other sciences.

Comments are welcome at dilip@livemint.com. To read Dilip D’Souza’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/dilipdsouza

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 13 Aug 2015, 09:20 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App