Math Doesn’t Need To Be Difficult
For basically my whole life, I’ve been interested in mathematics. As time goes on, I get more and more interested in mathematics as a subject. There are — quite frankly — lifetimes of knowledge when it comes to studying mathematics, even casually.
I’m building an approach to mathematics that simply says, Math is For Everyone. Every single person.
Here’s an example:
The Frivolous Theorem of Arithmetic: Most positive integers are very, very, very large.
Proof: Choose a positive integer N that is considered very, very, large. Then, there are a finite number of integers (1 to N) that are not very, very, large, and and an infinite number that are greater than very, very, large. Based on this, there are a larger number of very, very large numbers than less than very, very large. ◽️
That’s it! A theorem was proved in a few sentences, without a lot of mathematical machinery.
One of the points to highlight about this proof is that it is accessible to a large group of people. It is not particularly difficult: not much specialized knowledge is needed, logic is fairly straightforward, and the result is something interesting on its own. The fact that most integers are really large may explain why it can be difficult for people to reason about large numbers (how much bigger is a billion than a trillion, anyway?).
Mathematics can sometimes seem to be a mysterious realm for extremely smart people. Formal education can boost this way of thinking. Really, math doesn’t need to be difficult sometimes. It can be for everyone.
