I appreciate you writing this especially given that the userbase on this site includes a lot of people who really like math.
One thing I’m curious about—it seems like you enjoy physics. Do you enjoy using math to do / understand physics? If so, what do you think the difference is? Is it just that you especially dislike proofs or is it also something related to the concreteness / applied nature of it?
To me, mathematics is like lifting weights. I don’t like lifting weights. I do it anyway, halfheartedly and with poor form, because I need to move furniture sometimes.
I am extrinsically motivated to do math. So why didn’t I major in applied mathematics? I worried “applied mathematics” would be watered down. Besides, I want my professors to be rigorous. Reading and writing proofs of known facts is a higher level of rigor than matters to me most of the time. On the other hand, writing proofs for new theorems is lots of fun.
Math is a logic of words founded on absolute truth. I believe in neither words nor absolute truth. I can play by the rules of logic, but deep down I think probabilistically.
I appreciate you writing this especially given that the userbase on this site includes a lot of people who really like math.
One thing I’m curious about—it seems like you enjoy physics. Do you enjoy using math to do / understand physics? If so, what do you think the difference is? Is it just that you especially dislike proofs or is it also something related to the concreteness / applied nature of it?
To me, mathematics is like lifting weights. I don’t like lifting weights. I do it anyway, halfheartedly and with poor form, because I need to move furniture sometimes.
I am extrinsically motivated to do math. So why didn’t I major in applied mathematics? I worried “applied mathematics” would be watered down. Besides, I want my professors to be rigorous. Reading and writing proofs of known facts is a higher level of rigor than matters to me most of the time. On the other hand, writing proofs for new theorems is lots of fun.
Math is a logic of words founded on absolute truth. I believe in neither words nor absolute truth. I can play by the rules of logic, but deep down I think probabilistically.