What is the use of maths?

Mathematics has been on the true cross for long. It’s undoubtedly one of the few subjects which has gained more enemies than lovers.

In primary, junior high, senior high, and to some extent, tertiary, students loathe maths with the love they needed to have loved it.

Most ignorant persons whose decorated egos traverse no farther than their brains

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Even with their shenanigans, they ironically deploy the use of maths in their day-to-day activities. If they are to give a vendor twenty cedis and, buy “waakye” (a local meal) for say ten cedis. And they receive a change of two cedis instead of ten cedis, these same people would call the vendor names because of her miscalculation as if that isn’t an act of mathematics.

From pages 233-234 of the book (Think Big), the author, Prof. Ben Carson, gave an interesting twist to ward off people’s anathema to mathematics.

Although Curtis Carson (Ben’s older brother) had no problem with mathematics, he wasn’t just enthusiastic about geometry and geometrical designs. More than once, Curtis complained about geometry homework he had to solve during their days as kids. His ranting was that the geometry problem was too arduous and irrelevant.

But their mother (Sonya Carson) struck her foot down and had her son (Curtis) become doughty, despite his protests on geometry and geometrical designs by saying, “Know it better than anyone in the class.”

Through perseverance and being studious, Curtis conquered the fear and anathema he had had for geometry, and started scoring excellently. “Curtis, who later attended the University of Michigan, had no idea that such skills and knowledge would be a requirement to get into his field.”

He would later grow in life and become a well-accomplished aeronautical engineer. He designs aircraft brakes for major engineering firms. “His work calls for him to use a wide variety of geometrical formulas and analytical skills.” So imagine he hadn’t taken geometry seriously? He would be caught swimming in the phrase, “had I known”.

Talking of the use of mathematics, in the golden ages of Islam, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, known as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, came up with not just Algebra but algorithms. He revised Ptolemy's Geography, listing the longitudes and latitudes of various cities and localities. He also made important contributions to trigonometry, producing accurate sine and cosine tables, and the first table of tangents.

Today Al-Khwārizmī works, especially algorithms, without it, the world wouldn’t have had Laptop, Bus Schedules, Global Position System (GPS), Facial Recognition, Spotify, Google Search, Facebook, Online Shopping, and the phones with which those who say maths is ‘useless’ use to pass their irrelevant comments.

So, the essence of mathematics manifests itself in all spheres of man’s life. But lately, because people could easily get what they want without going through the defined processes, the importance of maths, they see it as a dead light. That’s why some persons who couldn’t make it to the university but have become successful in life seem to see ‘education’ as useless.

If maths isn’t a relevant subject, like knowing the right proportion of cassava dough and water to apply, in order to have that tasty Kenkey, would have been a gargantuan problem. In case we are blinded, the kenkey seller does make good use of ratio and proportion.

The deliberate calling of maths, as useless comes as a result that people have become canny so much that they could make ‘nonsense’ of things which they couldn’t have achieved.

John Forbes Nash once said: “You don’t have to be a mathematician to have a feel for numbers”.