A mathematics convert

A mathematical convert

Einstein is famous for saying that god does not play dice with universe, and yet the universe is famous for defiantly rebuffing any attempts to explain it deterministically. If God exists, he must like a game of poker indeed. Rules, be they describing a probabilistic or entirely predictable universe, have to be written in some language however. Be that language Egyptian hieroglyphs, Shakespearean sonnets, or the number of dirty tea mugs pilling up on my desk as I write.

The rules of the universe, is sadly written in a language many find intimidating, incomprehensible and clouded in mystery. This language being mathematics.

Having not been the greatest at mathematics during much of my early secondary school years, I was firmly (and I thought to myself permanently) in the camp of those who asked “why the hell, should I care about calculating the third side of triangle?”. For I thought to myself that getting a ruler out to measure the third side, would be quicker and far simpler.

I found trigonometry an obsession with geometry which related little to the universe I lived in, for the universe is not composed of triangles. Indeed the universe is not composed of any of the polygons I remember having to learn the names of in primary school, whilst I was thinking about ancient battles and the legends of Achilles. Like wise I did not find wonder hidden in the quadratic equation, because the universe is not full of parabola’s.

In short, I was convinced mathematics was a intellectual pursuit concerned with solving problems for the sake of solving problems, which bared little relevance to a kid who was obsessed with uncovering the secrets of the cosmos or exploring the physical and tangible world.

All this changed however, when I got a book entitled “A very light introduction to relativity”. Little did I know then, but I had in my hands, a document which went deeper into the geometry of space and time, than a fourth year university course in general relativity. If had known that, I would probably of run away as close to the speed of light as I could, and quickly thrown the book such that it sailed further away from me than the most distant cluster. In my happy obliviousness, I dared to open the book and it changed the course of my life.

I discovered mathematics was very relevant to my life indeed. Firstly, I saw how to model things like temperature and forces as fields, which permeate every region of the cosmos.

Then I learned how to use classical mechanics to describe the motion of planets orbiting stars. The true shocker, was that mathematics could predicted how time and space are entangled in a way that seems so counter intuitive to every day experience, and how this unity predicts that mass is a form of energy.

There it hit me like a penny dropping or an apple falling to the ground.

Mathematics is not simply a tool to work out the value of a unknown variable, or to find the length of a side of a triangle, it is a tool to predict new and astounding things concerning the universe in which we live. It’s about predicting new phenomena and providing a language to discuss these phenomena when English breaks down. General relativity shows the importance of furnishing the discussion of the universe with mathematics, since it discusses geometries which we have no intuition of, for it deals with curved spacetime. We are used to curved objects in space, but not cases where space itself is curved after all. And the idea of curved time, is something that the English language alone, cannot hope to articulate accurately.

Following this I did an EPQ on wormholes. Wormholes are bridges that connect far off regions, separated by large intervals in space or equally, large intervals in time. Looking at the possibility of time travel into the past using these structures, I learned something very special, physics is not black and white but in it can be found many cases where the answer is unknown and truth a difficult thing to obtain.

Having come to the realization that mathematics was not about being a calculator, but was about coming up with new creative ways of thinking about things. Realizing that mathematics did not simply give numerical values to unknowns, but predicted new and exciting phenomena. And noticing that physics was not black and white, I decided physics was the course for me.

This spurred me on to take these subjects to A levels, and going further with physics by studying it at uni. At Uni one learns many more ways in which mathematics predicts things and extends the language greatly. From looking at predictions concerning how quantum mechanics predicts the band structure of solids, to looking at how it predicts the existence of antimatter, physics and mathematics is full of surprises.

It is this joy and wonder, that now drives me on a daily basis. Mathematics has become a companion in a quest to discover the secrets of the universe, and long gone are the days when I would think to myself “mathematics is so boring!”.