Hi?

[τ > π]

Hello. I'm a person.
I like Math-with-a-capital-M. It's a perfect escape from life. I like other things, too, but it's all Math to me.
I like simplicity.
I think I might be trans*, which is complicated, so I need to figure that out before doing anything else. I see there is a sub-forum for trans* persons. If it's OK, I'd like to join that.
I'm sorry.

[Rorschach]

I got a 'C' in Higher Maths in 5th year. So my parents hired a maths tutor for a year and I re-sat it in 6th year. I got a 'C' again.
They were raging.

Welcome to you. I hope you have fun here.

[τ > π]

I never understood that a person can't understand math. I think it's bad teaching. Calculus is badly taught Analysis.
I hope I have fun here.
Before Mae's epiphany, everything was simple. Now, everything sucks. My body hurts. Especially the sex parts. (My arms and legs look wrong. Like wooden logs. Is that related?)
I'm sorry.

[Rorschach]

I understand that the word is 'maths'. How's that for you, huh?

Yeah, that's right. I said it. Come at me, Americans*.




*Please don't come at me.

[raptor9k]

I mean, if you insist...

[nosystemd]

I never understood that a person can't understand math.

If you understand what dyslexics go through learning to read, the same things happen to me regarding maths.

There are ways to teach reading to dyslexics and there are ways to teach maths to people like me, though most of what I've learned about maths was like an out-of-shape kid running a marathon. I'm glad it's over and I never want to do it again.

Funnily enough, I like numbers. I like symbols. But I really hate the symbols that people use with numbers.

Turn maths into coding, and I'm a happier person. Turn coding into maths, and I'm unhappy again. It's complicated. But either way, the amount of distractions I have go through the ceiling when I try to do this stuff. It really, really sucks. I can work with large amounts of information, but it depends on the type of information.

[τ > π]

Really, math = maths. Actually not. Math is unified. Maths are disparate.
Math is patterns. I like patterns. Anything can be a pattern. I don't like numbers directly. I like the patterns of numbers. I don't like symbols directly. I like the patterns of symbols. I don't like coding directly. I like the patterns of coding. It's all patterns. It's all math.

[nosystemd]

It's all patterns. It's all math.

Sure, I don't deny that. But I really prefer it when it has some clothes on. And for many people I think that defeats the purpose, or at least their preference is strong enough to treat it as if it does.

[τ > π]

The pattern is the "clothes".

[nosystemd]

The pattern is the "clothes".

That's true. We can talk about "pure math" and because enough people make the same assumptions about what we are referring to, they will generally guess which parts we mean. Though really all math is an abstraction, so the idea that there is something "underneath" it is arguably false. It's turtles, all the way down.

[auntmousie]

I broke up with math in college.

I mean, when I first met math I thought we didn't get along. There's a famous story in my family of how I came home one day in the early grades, threw my math book across the room and said "this is stupid, it's all just addition." My mother blinked, and probably said something that nobody remembers before I ranted on. "Subtraction? That's just addition backwards. Multiplication? That's just addition repeated. And they haven't taught me division yet but I'll bet it's addition too."

Fast forward a few years. Took algebra in Junior High and loved it. Geometry? I missed a week leading up to a test once, so I derived and proved the theory of similar triangles on the back of my test paper rather than just refer to it because I wasn't there when we covered it. I didn't like trigonometry - that was almost like our first real fight, because math had always been so easy for me, so natural, but with trig I had to memorize all sorts of names and things and I didn't like it. Plus, I was starting to date some other subjects. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe math got jealous.

I went to college as undeclared but still acted like I was going to major in math. Took second-term calculus (high school covered first term) and barely survived it. Linear Algebra was like trying again - it felt good, it felt right, maybe we could do this, but really I was already starting to fall for English Lit. I took astronomy, and there was some fun math there. But then I stared ahead at the classes I was going to have to take - complex manifold theory? multivariable calculus? I hated to say it... I wasn't having fun anymore. I had coasted through high school on the strength of pure intellect and moxie. College is a terrible place to learn how to learn, and that goes double for advanced mathematics.

When I learned I couldn't even get a minor without getting past multivariable calculus, I decided it was time for The Talk. I declared as an English major with a focus on Elizabethan Drama. Yes, that's right, I f***ing majored in Shakespeare.

Ended up eventually (thirteen years after graduation) going to law school, and being appalled at how many lawyers can't math their way out of a paper bag. We'll always be friends, and that friendship gives me an advantage, but truth be told, it's over. The reification of abstractions is a mathematical act, and I know that, but it feels more real to me when you wrap it in a statute. I fell in love with the law.