Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Importance of Mathematics


As an engineering student you could imagine that math is a large part of my education. As with most math students, my first impression was that it was all just a waste of time. It seemed like it was nothing more than number games. The teachers brought us through these exercises just to make us solve imaginary problems. The problems started to become increasingly frustrating and I started to question the purpose of these problems. Then the teacher starting assigning us word problems. These problems were relate to real life situations, and I started to realize that these problems may have a purpose behind them. I was measuring distances for bridges and finding the area of triangles among other things. As I started to do these problems I began to realize how influential math is in all of our modern technologies.

As with most industries, the genius of a very few people have allowed others to build upon those ideas and develop more advanced ideas. The history of mathematics is no exception, with one of the most notable examples being the work of Euclid. He developed a system for geometry that is still in use today. In fact, his book Elements, was the standard for geometry for over two thousand years after his death. His developments contributed greatly to modern civil engineering by allowing the development of Pythagoras theorem and the laws of sines and cosines. These rules allow surveyors to measure the distance between two points. By treating any problem as a triangle, the surveyor just needs to know the distance and angle between two other points to find the distance between two other points in the triangle. This allows the surveyor to have the necessary measurements required for constructing large buildings and structures.

Like the example of Euclid, there are many more great mathematicians that worked throughout the years, all contributing to their field in some way, all leading to further advancements. If you look to the history of technology you can see how new developments in mathematics lead to new products being produced. Such as Archimedes’s levers and pulleys, the arches of the Roman aqueduct, the French Trebuchet, Pascal’s mechanical calculator, the bridges and dams of the twentieth century, and our modern electronics.

This example of the progressive nature of mathematics helps a student because of how you learn. Just as ancient humans had to learn the basics of mathematics thousands of years ago, so does a student now. In order to understand the advanced concepts that will allow you engineer bridges, electronic circuits, engines, or airplanes, you have to learn the basics of math first. Those frustrating problems that students have to deal with that seem to have no purpose are quite the opposite. They give you the basic skills and knowledge so that you can solve the more advanced problems in the future.

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