“How much math do you really need in everyday life? Ask yourself that — and also the next 10 people you meet, say, your plumber, your lawyer, your grocer, your mechanic, your physician or even a math teacher. Unlike literature, history, politics and music, math has little relevance to everyday life.”

This quote is from G.V. Ramanathan’s article How much math do we really need? While I somewhat agreed with most of the article, that last sentence instantly struck me as perhaps the dumbest thing I had read in the month of October.

True, the average person doesn’t need much math in everyday life. Everyone needs some, and people in certain jobs need a lot, but most people need so little that they don’t even realize they’re using math.

But notice what happens when you take his question — “How much _____ do you really need in everyday life?” — and fill in any of the other subjects he mentioned. The answer in every case is still “almost none.” Really, how often have you turned to Shakespeare or Beethoven to get yourself out of a jam?

Of course, that doesn’t mean that these subjects are worthless. Despite the limitations on their practical value, they’re still part of being a civilized human being, and worth studying for their own sake.

But math, in addition to being a worthy subject from a purely academic perspective, is a basic life skill (at least lower level math). Not being able to balance your checking account is about as stupid as not being able to find Florida on a map. Yet someone would be ridiculed for the latter while getting a pass on the former, simply by using the excuse “I’m terrible at math.”

In all fairness, math majors, teachers, etc. probably tend to overstate its importance. I have to admit that it’s entirely possible to get by just fine without having ever learned the multiplication tables. But I can’t think of another school subject where ignorance has more potential to hurt you.

Show me someone who thinks they can win at blackjack without counting cards, who thinks they can afford a mortgage ten times their annual income, and who doesn’t know the difference between itemizing their deductions and taking the standard deduction. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that they can’t pass a 7th grade math test.

You don’t actually need the quadratic formula or the Pythagorean theorem to figure out how much retirement income you’ll need, or whether paying off your mortgage is a good idea, or whether paying 24% credit card interest is a wise investment. But someone who learns how to solve problems in the classroom grows up better able to solve problems in the real world.

I’m not saying that mathematical illiteracy is our biggest problem, or that America’s educational system will be its downfall, or that everyone needs to take math after high school. But can we agree that any self-respecting adult should have better math skills than a dog?

“Dave the Math Dog” was once a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman. Dave the dog was asked to figure out the square root of 36, and answered with 6 taps of his paw. Dave the human was unable to verify the answer until he was given a calculator. (The dog is probably explained by the Clever Hans effect, but still…)

Photo by Mykl Roventine

Buckminster Fuller thought it was important to describe the world as accurately as possible, in order to avoid clouded intuition and maintain a good grip on reality. To do that, he used language in unusual ways. For example:

• Because we now know that the world is not flat, the word “worldwide” doesn’t make any sense. He said “world-around.”
• Since we now know that the sun does not revolve around the earth, it doesn’t make sense to talk about “sunrises” and “sunsets” as if we’re still and the sun is moving. He called them “sunsights” and “sunclipses” to describe them from our perspective as the earth rotates.
• “Up” and “down” are awkward because they refer to directions in a plane that moves around with you. If someone at the South Pole goes “upstairs” (relative to them), would someone at the North Pole say the other guy was going “downstairs?” That’s why Fuller said he was walking “outstairs” or “instairs,” referring to his motion relative to the center of the earth.

I wonder what Buckminster Fuller would have said about “next weekend.”

People fall into two groups in terms of what “next weekend” means to them:

1. Those who say “If I meant this weekend, I would have said this weekend.”
2. Those who say “But this weekend is the next weekend.”

This became an issue for me a few weeks ago on a Tuesday, when my friend said she’d be in town “next weekend.” That Friday, she again said that she’d be in town “next weekend.” While technically correct, I thought it was odd that she’d say “next weekend” instead of “tomorrow.”

Had she forgotten that it was Friday? Or was she pushing her plans back a week? Or was she just talking weird? I called to ask, and found out she’s in group 1 and I’m in group 2.

I always knew group 1 people were out there, but I didn’t know I actually knew one. And thus began a long and painful investigation into the matter. Short answer: almost everyone is in group 1, but they can’t say why.

Despite my best efforts to understand how “next weekend” could mean two weekends from now, I’ve still come up blank. The best I can come up with is that “next weekend” could be interpreted as “the end of next week,” except that (1) I didn’t say “the end of next week,” I said “next weekend,” and (2) the weekend does not come at the end of the week (although personally, I think Monday should be the first day of the week).

Here are some points of confusion that come up when “next” can potentially mean either “next” or “next next” depending on who you’re talking to:

• If someone says “Our next meeting is next Friday,” almost everyone thinks that means that one meeting from now is two Fridays from now. Why doesn’t it mean that two meetings from now is one Friday from now, or one of the other combinations?
• If someone calls you on the phone and says “I’m going to kick your ass the next time I see you,” does that mean this coming time or the following time?
• If someone says “I’m going to turn into a werewolf at the next full moon,” does that mean this coming full moon, the following one, the full moon of the next calendar month, the full moon of the next lunar month, or what?

(Notice that all of this confusion is avoided if “next” always means “next.” Just sayin’.)

I actually think that the confusion is mainly around the meaning of “this” rather than the meaning of “next.” After all, if today is Saturday, everyone agrees on what “this weekend” and “next weekend” mean.

But what if today is Wednesday? In that case, “this weekend” makes no sense at face value. You can’t say “Are you having a good time so far this weekend?” But we say “this weekend” as a shortcut for “this coming weekend,” and then it makes sense.

On the other hand, on a Monday, many people think that “this weekend” means “this past weekend,” and a few of them think that “last weekend” means the weekend before that.

Could you ask, on a Monday, “Did you have a good time this weekend, and will you have an even better time this weekend?” Does “this Arbor Day” mean Arbor Day of this year (possibly in the past), or this coming Arbor Day (possibly next year)? Don’t even get me started on the linguistics of time travel.

Does “this light” mean the light a few feet in front of you, and so “the next light” means the following one? Or does “this light” make no sense because we’re not at a light, so “the next light” is this one a few feet in front of us?

Anyway, once I realized how ambiguous something as simple as “next weekend” can be, that changed everything for me. The language we use shapes our thinking, for better or for worse. If I can’t say “this” and “next” because of the potential confusion, then how can I express concepts of time? And if I can’t express them, how can I perceive them?

Two years ago, Glen Allsopp left this comment on my post Don’t Label Me:

“I watched a film by Eckhart Tolle recently in which he asked you to imagine the world if you didn’t have a name. Close your eyes and try it, it’s quite interesting.”

When I imagine a world without names, I get the sense that the separation of you and me is an illusion. There is no “me,” because I am you. When I imagine a world without time, I get the sense that the separation of past and future is an illusion, or at least not accurately represented by a one-way absolute dimension.

As Christian Shephard said on LOST, “There is no ‘now,’ ‘here.’” Or as some guy at the National Institute of Standards and Technology said, “Our clocks do not measure time. Time is defined to be what our clocks measure.”

This post was published on Metric Moment, 10/10/10 10:10:10.

Photo by fdecomite