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Why Do We Learn Mathematics?

Photo by Vanessa Garcia on Pexels.com

I was in 12th standard, 2012 was the year. After my Higher Secondary School Certificate exam, I was preparing for the University Admission Test in Udvash Admission Care (a local admission coaching center in Bangladesh).

I vividly remember the day when I first met Shohag Bhai, the founder of Udvash. Shohag Bhai was teaching us Higher Secondary Physics that day. He is indeed a man of character, one of the very few persons whom I respectfully admire from the core of my heart.

I recall a certain incident on that day when at one point he asked the class,

”Can anybody answer me why we learn mathematics?

You are learning calculus, geometry, trigonometry, mechanics – all the tedious tasks sapping your juice outta brain cells. So where in your life will you apply calculus?

Will you need trigonometry to be a BCS cadre? Or to write down your shopping list?

Apart from basic addition subtraction and multiplication, nothing will really be necessary directly in your life.

So why?”

The question had struck us so hard, all were dumbfounded, including me. I had never put a real thought before on the true purpose of doing math.

Everybody was silent.

Then Shohag Bhai quipped, ”Doing mathematics is not the purpose of learning mathematics. The critical thought you put while solving the math, all the mental pressure and endurance, tenacity, hard work, those virtues wire your brain positively that the next time your brain gets more prepared to solve a real-life problem.”

Maybe you are negotiating with your customer, your mathematical brain circuitry can help you to close a better deal. Or…

To watch out!

My younger sister gave me this math problem today. Such an innocent-looking mathematical equation, bring 1 to the left, square both sides, and solve the quadratic equation, and VOILA! You get the solution.

Doesn’t take too much effort right?

But wait for a second, since there is a square root inside the equation, you must test the equation roots on both the left-hand side and the right-hand side to see whether the equation is satisfied by the roots or not. Because presumably, the square value of a variable can give you both positive and negative answers, which may not satisfy the main equation.

This Math is telling you to watch out!



Finally, you see, the result -1 is not satisfying the equation’s both sides.

If you hadn’t justified your answers, you probably would have considered -1 as an answer as well.

I consider myself good at mathematics since my childhood. I simply love the beauty of this subject. Probably, I have learned to watch out properly in my life by doing maths.

There are other aspects as well, will discuss another day (I doubt though, another day never comes).

Time to see how that watching-out brain circuitry pays me off!

How I learned to solve Rubik’s Cube is another interesting story (to me, not necessarily to everybody), Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán on Pexels.com


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Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh

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