What specifically do you not like about it. And I don’t just mean “it’s too hard”, what specifically is hard?
I feel like most people would like mathematics, but the education system failed them, teaching in a way that’s not enjoyable.
You must log in or # to comment.
Most people don’t just like to sit there and solve puzzles. Math is systems of interleaved puzzles that grow in complexity.
If you enjoy that, you like (pure) math. Most people don’t - I don’t think “most” would if the education system didn’t fail them, the same way that most people don’t like sudoku puzzles.
Personally I don’t like pure math, I like applied math. Physics. I like seeing the numbers that represent the forces I can see in the real world. I sort of enjoy geometry for the same reason, but less so. I enjoy stats and probability theory to a degree.
But yeah, most people don’t enjoy just sitting there and doing puzzles. There’s probably a good number of people who would enjoy math if they had a different educational experience, but a ton of people just don’t like doing math.
I enjoy the concepts and structures of mathematics. Fractal geometry, holomorphic dynamics, computational theory, uncertainty principles and all that are fascinating as hell. Discrete systems dancing with continuous integrals at process limits.
I DO NOT ENJOY working with math. Specifically I cant read complex equations. I don’t have an attention disorder but I swear the moment I try reading anything that looks like this I get overloaded and nope out. If it aint highschool algebra with PEMDAS I cant do it. If you put a bullet to my head and pinned my survival on properly solving a quadratic equation I’d just tell you to shoot me.
The concepts are cool once you can get past the notation to understand the ontology of whats trying to be conveyed. The actual expanded out notations and trying to do work with them is a fuckin nightmare.
Also since im ranting can I just say, across STEM the biggest problem is the naming convention. Math and science would be at least 60% more accessable if we went back and renamed all theorems, hypothesis, proofs, to be what they are about instead of just shouting out the guy who discovered it. “eulers identity” doesnt mean a fucking thing. Neither does scrodingers equations or the riemann hypothesis or turing machines. THESE ARE NOT ACCESSABLE NAMES THEY CONVEY NOTHING INTRINSICALLY BESIDES SOME DEAD GUYS LAST NAME. GET SOME PROGRAMMERS WHO KNOW HOW TO ACTUALLY DECLARE HUMAN READABLE STRINGS FOR YOUR FUCKING ABSTRACTION OBJECTS.
This is basically how I feel. I love physics…concepts. Relativity is really cool. Optics is really cool. Magnetism is really cool.
Sitting down to calculate the force a charged particle feels in an electric field if fired at a certain velocity? That sucks. It’s so easy to make a mistake and a chore to do.
Also, to your point about naming conventions, it’s an unfortunate side effect of always building on top of existing work. Why is integral symbol the way it is? Isaac Newton wrote an S next to his calculations (I think for “sum”, but I could be wrong). A lot of math is really old. What was a good way of keeping track of math concepts 300 years ago? Idk, but that Riemann guy came up with a way to add an infinite amount of numbers.
Sure we could rename everything, but then all the textbooks written beforehand would be really confusing.
Your rant reminded me of this https://youtube.com/shorts/S65gPwY0i-g about more problems in putting people’s names to theorems
I had to take algebra 1 twice in highschool. The fist time I took a college level course, and failed, but passed my second year in the gen course. I then failed algebra 2 miserably, though I will say that year was wild for me, and I didn’t really have fucks for math class. I half assed it and was not surprised I failed. You can’t half ass math class.
For me, was that if I missed one lesson, it began this giant snowball effect where I couldn’t catch up, so in case of my first year algebra, I gave up and failed. It’s the only class I ever failed.
The class moved really fast, and I have adhd (unknown to me then). I could thrive in English, History ect because the lessons are structured differently. Math, you dont viciously pay attention, or need more time, I couldn’t keep up with its pacing in highschool. Once imaginary numbers were introduced, I just, yeah.
Exactly me. I aced every English history science class and failed math miserably. Also adhd but not that bad.
Luckily computers can do it now so we dont need those skills as much but I still wish I had them.
Some people don’t jibe with certain ways of thinking. End of.
Shit teacher. I had a good teacher one year and it turned out I wasn’t actually bad at maths.
This comes off like a person who has no empathy, or who assumes everyone else thinks like they do. When I was in college, I tutored math to middle school kids, and I can say with certainty that some people’s brains take to it more naturally than others. You can be very smart and still struggle with math.
And putting that aside, “enjoyment” is inherently subjective. It’s like saying most people would enjoy liver and onions if they had it cooked right. No, some people will and some people won’t. It’s okay - people are a diverse lot and it’s fine if some people don’t like what you like.
You can be very smart and struggle with
anythinga lot of things.Absolutely
Because the mathematics literature fucking sucks.
It is written by math nerds for math nerds. Show me all the fucking proof, you just spent 10 pages talking about anything and everything but you can’t expand on how your formula has been transformed because of whatever theorem.
How many god damn time have I read something akin to “the proof is left to the reader. The resulting formula is [something entirely new].”
Like fuck you, show me how it’s done.
the education system failed them, teaching in a way that’s not enjoyable.
Yeah, pretty much. I had to learn a ton of math, where I never got explained what it could be used for. And when it can be applied in an obvious way, namely physics, most of the complexity lays in memorizing a ton of one-letter-abbreviations and formulas, which feels pointless, too.
I’m a programmer now. That was always easy to me, because the best way to learn that is by gradually solving harder puzzles. You don’t just sit in a classroom and get told all the solutions to all the puzzles…
It’s really hard to understand some of it. It might’ve been fun if I had good math instructors for every class at every step of the way from algebra to ordinary differentials. Because so much material builds on what was taught before, it gradually got more and more incomprehensible until I gave up trying to understand it halfway through cal 2 and just memorized the important parts enough to pass. Besides that, I rarely see applications in day to day life past basic algebra. It’s not like I’m gonna take careful measurements of how fast my car’s going to derive my exact fuel consumption rate. It’s easier to just go off the odometer and gas pump readings between fills for instance.
I’m good at math, but I dislike it for the same reason I dislike cutting the grass: it’s work and my ADHD brain doesn’t get reward dopamine for accomplishing work.
This. I used to bloody love maths. It used to be like a puzzle that felt good when it all fit together neatly. Nowadays its just work. When I see a bunch of numbers that need worked my body physically aches with frustration.
I still love when numbers do stuff, but I need them spooned to me like a semi-literate milk-fed gimp.
I like math just fine up until trigonometry and at that point my brain just can’t hold onto it. Failed college calculus three times. There’s something about the formulas and rules and applications that isn’t intuitive for me at that level. I’m much better at the Earth Sciences and had no problems with chemistry.
“Liking” math isn’t really accurate either. I don’t care about math, I care about things that require math. Geometry and algebra are useful in a ton of other disciplines and activities. Playing with numbers doesn’t make me feel smart or accomplished the way a puzzle does.
I have excellent long-term memory but have always struggled with keeping strings of numbers in my short-term memory. You can imagine the struggle when trying to solve a function is like trying to make a bed with a slightly too small fitted sheet
I just really really don’t care for it. Not the math, not physics. I don’t care if you can calculate the velocity of a car downhill. I don’t care how heavy the tower of our local castle is. I’ve yet to meet a math problem apart from grocery cost that I care to know the answer of.
I was actually always pretty good at math, I had Bs and sometimes As. I can memorize the formulas and fill them in and do the equations. But none of it interested me even in the slightest.
I started actively disliking math when people around me pushed it on me as this be-all-end-all definition of intelligence. Understanding math isn’t enough, you have to actually LOVE calculating advanced math problems in your head, otherwise you’re not smart.
Thats like the opposite of me. I think calculating the force of a building being demolished or the amount of wind velocity though a tunnel etc is so interesting. Or things like why in 2038 there will be another “y2k” type situation with 64 bit machines because of another overflow problem.
But I cant remember equations or do any algebra no matter what.
I love math. As long as i can look at it on paper and think about it. I absolutely hate math when someone throws numbers at my face and expect an answer.
I like algebra, it’s logical and understandable for me. But calculus just falls out of my head the minute I take my eyes off of it.
I am an accountant, I love numbers and number trivia, little puzzles.
But math math, like beyond algebra? Not as much.
And early math, like arithmetic, was poisoned by bad teachers and bad teaching methods. I didn’t like it before algebra, it was boring.
