Finding meaning in the "Objective" - Mathematics

Watts729 August 09, 2018 at 03:39 3100 views 2 comments

So as I seek my Masters in Mathematics in preparation for hopefully a PhD, I cant help but wonder if I will be satisfied with a life of objectivity, a non romantic subject. I love reading philosophy, playing music, listening to music, nature, and all sorts of expressions. I also love the rigor of mathematics, puzzles, computers, the satisfaction of solving questions that can be answered!

Is rigor during the day and romanticism in the evening a good plan to live ones life? A Balance of sorts?

Comments (2)

Wayfarer August 09, 2018 at 03:52 #204227 0 likes

Reply to Watts729 If you're good at maths, go hard at it. Maths skills are extremely important and better still they're highly transportable. You can apply them to all different disciplines and subjects. There's going to be enormous opportunities in data science and various digital engineering fields for which maths are indispensable.

Also, there is such a thing as 'the romance of mathematics'. That has to do with the ancient intuition from the Pythagoreans and Platonists, that 'the book of nature is written in mathematics' (to quote Galileo.) There are some very interesting mathematical philosophers, and also some very interesting areas of philosophy of maths. Have a look at the review of Love and Math. (I didn't read it myself, as my maths is extremely basic :yikes: .) Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland) was a lecturer in mathematics. Oh, here's another one - William Byers How Mathematicians Think.

So, stay with it - learn an instrument, take up skiing or whatever as well, but if you're good at maths, you really ought to stick with it. That'd be my advice.

Watts729 August 09, 2018 at 03:54 #204229 0 likes

Reply to Wayfarer Thanks for the input. My undergrad is in computer science and I cant imagine having to be an engineer in a cubicle for the rest of forever haha. I do like math and I think I can be good at it.