“Nonlinear thinking means which way you should go depends on where you already are.”
“Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines, quos ultra citraque newuit consistere rectum” (Horace).
Translated: “There is a proper measure in things. There are, finally, certain boundaries short of and beyond which what is right cannot exist,” (Jordan Ellenberg).
Math is, absolutely-without-a-doubt, not my wheelhouse. Not to say that I am not enamored by the abstracted creature I’ve imagined personifying “math.” The same way I am drawn to electronics and circuits, tangled, slippery things I feel have potential, perhaps to parlay into an art project, math is a prickly, tricky thing I never quite get, a beat I can’t bob my head to, a joke I can’t quite deliver.
Ellenberg appealing describes math in simplistic ways yet I know better!
“Trigonometric functions describe the extent to which two variables are related to each other, what calculus has to say about relationship between linear and nonlinear phenomena, and how the quadratic formula serves as a cognitive model for scientific inquiry.”
(Jordan Ellenberg)
As available as he describes, as I get drawn in and feel that math is tangible as French verbs, in the end, I fall for his tricks, staying confused with the concepts as I was before.
Reference & Reads:
- Jordan Ellenberg, Power of Mathematical Thinking
- Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe
- Katy Waldman, Why Do Brits Say “Maths” and Americans say “Math”?
*[Image credit: my own digital collage + photo of a cardboard landscape model]
XO,
H
Hannahloulou 