How Much Math Do We Really Need?
October 31st, 2010
Email this article to a friend
“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
November 1st, 2010 at 6:39 pm
There is a critical point in learning what you may never use in everyday life: Development of your thinking mind.
I learned calculus at high school and never used it. (And no, Hunter, I have no desire to discuss it with you.) Was it a waste? If you limit your definition of usefulness as something you use in daily life, yes. But no, if we wanted to develop our brains to accommodate some abstract thinking.
Likewise, I think it’s a good idea people learn second language. I don’t care which language because you probably never get to the point of proficiency you can actually use it for practical purpose, like reading the book of your interest or carrying discussion with a native speaker. But you will learn each language has a unique way of seeing this world and describing it. This liberates you from the single point perspective and resulting self-centeredness. You may even develop some respect for foreigners who are speaking some English to communicate with you. That is worth the effort, in my opinion.
But, I know, most Americans are SO NAIVE … they are happy to diminish themselves to do only what they need to do and not dream anything beyond it.
November 1st, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Here Here
That is the whole point of Algebra at school
People don’t go into the supermarket and explicitly use algebra BUT they do go into the suprmarket and use the thinking skills that they have developed in maths classes at secondary school.
November 2nd, 2010 at 12:04 am
@ Akemi, I always had a hard time motivating myself to study Spanish in high school because I knew I would never become fluent. And yet, I could still see that there was value in gaining just some proficiency. There’s hardly anything you can learn that doesn’t help you in more ways than you might expect.
@ Glenn, most people don’t even use arithmetic in the supermarket, and can’t figure out whether a “sale” on multiple items is really much of a sale at all. The people who carry around both thinking skills and practical knowledge have the best of it.
November 2nd, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Hi Hunter.
When I hear someone say “I’m terrible at math”, or something like that, I add a bit to their line so it actually means “I’m terrible at math because I’m not interested in learning it”. It then makes more sense, and the situation is clear. It is not worth spending much time trying to convince someone who is not interested in a topic about the benefits of the topic, when there are others who are, and who see the long-term benefits. You don’t know what you didn’t know until you know it, and this is true for many topics including math skills. A person who thinks they didn’t need to know a certain skill won’t realize what they missed out on had they had they skill when it would have been useful.
People rarely mean “I’m terrible at math and want to learn more about math.”
Also, one good thing is that this creates less competition for the best, who need math and verbal skills and business know-how to maintain their high positions.
November 3rd, 2010 at 12:00 am
@ Armen, we’re usually terrible at things we’re not motivated to learn, aren’t we? And you’re right, we can’t really force them to care, and it means less competition for those who do. Still, I dream of a world where everyone celebrates Pi Day.
November 16th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
For sure you can’t do without math. Maybe in my position not without some calculus as well, which I never studied in school.
Math as a learned skill addresses more solutions in living than one ever thinks about, you just do it automatically. You don’t as a rule stop and say, “Now I’m going to do some math”. It is like you wouldn’t think of trying to write if you never learned grammar, or for that matter, spelling.
It is interesting to contemplate its usefulness.
Now, how to calculate the stresses on a geodesic construction that doesn’t follow a simple dome but veers off and twists and waves in different directions…
February 8th, 2011 at 11:00 am
I wasn’t a ‘natural’ at math as a kid, but got better the harder I worked. Whether a person ‘needs’ math, or will use it, depends a little on seeing opportunities to use it to understand stuff. I am not able to do the tough calculus problems that I had to do in college now, but I know what calculus means, what it tells me, and I can now get a machine to do a hateful integral that I was once clever enough to do by hand.
Without any algebra or calculus or abstract mathematics, I would not look at problems the same way. When I wonder about stalled traffic, for instance, I naturally break the situation into parts based on what I know, and using the cultural tendencies I picked up as a scientist. If I knew nothing of stats, or queueing, or group theory, my approach to things would be different, and since I can’t imagine not naturally going to these things to understand stuff, I’m not sure how I would go about it. It is interesting to think about.
One other thought- I think that we get sort of a distorted view of what high school or early college physics and/or math is likely to do for us in daily life because we get caught up in getting the right answers to contrived problems.
I was thinking not too long ago about figuring out how far away a boat that I saw on the lake might be. The thought process really involved mainly mental math and a sense of relative sizes of effects, and I was happy to get an estimate that was not crazy, but certainly not good enough to guide a missile. But it was fun. And it didn’t matter. But it was something I could think about, and naturally did.
Having the ability to estimate, or even to rank things in magnitude, or to form basic ratios using reasonable assumptions can be very important. Do you need math? It is a way of ordering a great deal of the world, and not having it around means that certain types of appreciation of things is cut off. My life is better for having had enough music to know something about what I listen to. Not having it would not make music unappealing. Which was said by Armen “A person who thinks they didn’t need to know a certain skill won’t realize what they missed out on had they had they skill when it would have been useful.” in a far more concise and pithy way.
November 18th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Every sane and rational person would agree that we as human beings need SOME math, but I say that at a certain point in your math learning experience you’ve gone as far as you need to go.