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MATHEMATICS
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Yes folks I'm a mathematitian at heart, and I know right now you're thinking of those open university programmes you used to see before kids TV of a Sunday morning - brown suits, green ties and permed hair that indicates these presenters were either on drugs or needed to be. But if you do get a kick out of solving x in terms of y,d,l and u then maths if definitely your subject.
Mathematics is a very, very important subject.
It is a structured language that, once a problem is translated into it, the rules of mathematics can be applied and a solution found.
The most trivial of problems like :
3 apples + 5 apples = ?
8 apples
Of course we do such simple problems every day without even thinking about the translation, but more complex problems need extra thought to translate and more advanced formulae to solve.
Algebra is basically a shorthand notation, in the same sense as what a sectratary would use - it just allows documents to be written more quickly and so theorys to be proved faster.
For example, in population modelling, we could write : 'population of the world...' in every line of the proof!
Instead, we simply define, at the top of the page : 'P = population of the world'
and from then on simply write 'P'.
An example of this use of algebra is given by the derivation of my lottery rating function.
One of the main problems with algebra is people tend to forget the algebraic definition. It is always vital to know what all these symbols mean. This is the main reason why people think of algebra as pointless and totally useless - once the meaning has been lost, it tends to be difficult to understand.
Even in simple examples, like the apples problem above, the solution must be converted back to real life quantities.
The answer '8' is meaningless. The proper answer is '8 apples'
What do I mean by 3D....
I find that some subjects like History (I appologise to historians in advance), are 2 dimensional - you learn one topic and then move onto the next, never actually using the stuff you learnt until the exam. Where-as maths has a basis, of simple arithmetic, upon which the ideas of higher level techniques are built upon. In a lecture/lesson of maths you never actually learn new topics merely expand on those already known. For each new theory that is learnt, old results and ideas are used. So we are constantly using and revising theorys learnt previously.
The Mandelbrot Set
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This leads you to think of how modern mathematics is so much more advanced. The maths you learnt at school, by no means outdated, but is just the tip of the ice-berg.
I can't remember who said 'For every problem solved, at least two new problems arise' but it is this what keeps maths going.
New 'twigs' of maths are formed on each branch everyday. There is no end to where mathematics will go, or rather, where mathematics will take us.
Some mathematical links 'n' stuff....
Lecturers...
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