Is Mathematics all about numbers?

We all know that Mathematics involves numbers. From the basic fundamentals of this subject when we were just in elementary, algebra, trigonometry and calculus, this subject matters revolves around numbers.

When I just in elementary, I didn’t have much interest towards Mathematics. It was just until then my Math teacher in grade 4 caught me that I have a potential skills in solving Mathematics problems. He then chose me to be one of the competitors of a Math contest in our city. I was overwhelmed that time because it was my first time to be picked as one of the representatives of our school. Of course, I accepted his offer so that I can also get a medal if ever I won because as a child, it’s already a pleasure to get a medal or award. Luckily, me and my time got a place in that said competition.

I was really thankful to all the teachers who helped me honed up my skills in Mathematics. Because of them, I used to love numbers and wanted to gain more knowledge under the field of Mathematics. This influenced to grab a Mathematics course when I got to study in college. I took a Bachelor in Mathematics degree when I entered in college until then I met this professor.

He asked us about what Mathematics mean or what is it definition. No one have the confidence to raise a hand and answer his question. He then share about the responses of his previous students about what’s their definition of Mathematics. According to him, most of them answered “Mathematics is all about numbers”.

He then said that their responses are wrong. He then explained on why Mathematics is not all about numbers and gave an example. He discussed about logic and mathematics. And yeah, he’s right. I’ve remembered about the logic in mathematics which might involved inductive and deductive logic. This also includes propositions and its different types.

This made me realize that Mathematics is not all about numbers. Apparently, we had a subject called “Logic and Set Theory” and honestly, I really loved this subject compared to other branch in Mathematics.

Our professor introduced us about what the subject matter is. He explained us new keywords such as inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning involves starting from specific premises and forming a general conclusion, while deductive reasoning involves using general premises to form a specific conclusion.

After those subtopic, he then discussed new terms like proposition. Proposition is a statement that has a truth value- wether true or false. Most propositions are declarative sentences which are stating an information in which we can tell if it’s true or false. On the other hand, statements that are not considered propositions includes imperative, exclamatory and interrogative sentences. At first, I really don’t know how to figure out if wether a statement is a proposition is not but later on, I was able to determine the qualities of a proposition after few discussions.

He also discussed us about different types of proposition: atom and compound proposition. Atom proposition are single statements while compound involves two or more clauses. Compund proposition has types also which were conjunction, disjunction, implication and conditional.

What I love under this topic is making the truth tables. Because I understand what are the rules of determining wether a certain pair of premises of a proposition is, it’s easier for me to determine wether its true of false.

I really love logic in Mathematics. I am looking forward for new learnings from our professor which would make my heart desire to teach Mathematics to my future students.

Mathematicians use logic all the time to prove theorems and other mathematical facts. Without these, we might be unable to prove formulas of even create new mathematical formulas.