Why Math?

I think that I have always been interested in math. I think my interest in math comes from two sources. The first source being my own curiosity. From a young I have always liked to take things apart and look at the guts of things. This is because I like to understand how things work. If you think about it math is that exact same thing. Math can be used to explain anything. My math teacher taught me something that changed the way I look at math. Some people see math as just a bunch of numbers, because of my math teacher I do not see it that way. So my math teacher walked up to the board and drew a big 2 on the board, and then he asked what is that? The obvious response is well that is a two, but he said, no that is the symbol that represents the idea of two. The numbers are just place holders for the actual manipulation of physical things. That is a little crazy to think about, but it is a great way of looking at it. The second source of my interest in math comes from my dad. My dad is a math teacher. He has taught at Park City at the junior high, high school, and even for UVU at the college level. Because of that he has always talked to us about math. Most families do not sit around the table and talk about complex numbers, or have math competitions. Because of that I feel that I have been more exposed to math then most kids.

You may say, oh this kid is a high school student, what does he know? I am only a senior, so I am only taking BC calculus this year, but I have interest in some of these unsolved problems. To give you some perspective on my prior knowledge I plan to talk about the Riemann hypothesis zero’s, the zeta function included in those. I also plan to talk about Fermat’s last Theorem, and how it deals with elliptical curves. Or maybe the P vs. NP problem and how it deals with computer science computation. Now if you know any of these problems, you know that I know what I am talking about, and if you do not know anything i just said, you will after I am done with this blog. Through my research I probably will not be able to explain a full in depth analysis of every problem, the math would kill some of my audience. However, it is not too complicated to explain the basic idea of these problems and what their discoveries are. For example, Fermat’s last theorem deals with high integers values of the Pythagoras’ theorem. Now that is rather brief, but it did not require me to know very much math. Hopefully though, I will gain an advancement in my understanding of math, and I am excited to do so. 

I plan on learning this information from books, videos, and other enthusiasts of math. For example, my calculus teacher has several books on Euler’s and Fermat’s conjectures, that he let me borrow. Another great source for math junkies is YouTube. Channels such as Numberphile, Mathlogger, and 3Blue1Brown are all great sources on these unsolved problems, and math in general. The most common source for information these days is the internet, so I will be looking through many websites as well for the information to compose this blog. Sometimes when mathematicians put math in terms for a general audience in these posts, they over simplify for conceptual reasoning. I hope to be able to overcome that as much as possible. However, I am human so I will probably make a mistake of two but, out of the 9 to 12 people who will ever stumble upon my blog, I am sure someone will correct me in the comments like they always do.

I hope to get a few things out this blog. My first hope is that I personally learn a lot about math, and its workings. Not only the material but also its contributors, and the legacy of these great mathematicians. Second, I hope The people who reads this gain something. Knowing how bad of a writer I am, I can guarantee I will lose some people in my rambling of some complex obscure math equations. Even though that may happen I hope people will gain a new perspective on math. Maybe I have this unrealistic standard but, I see math as a beautiful representation of nature itself. Out of all of this I hope to show some people what I see.

About Me

Hi, my name is Jake. I am a senior in high school this year. I am going to be writing this blog about The unsolved problems and conjectures of math. I am writing about this because I have always loved math. Math is a way of expressing and understanding everything, making it one of the greatest things to exist. I chose specifically the unsolved problems because, some people think that the math for everything has been solved, and that is simply not true. I also chose unsolved problems because that includes math for the sake of math. I mean that some of these problems once solved will not change physics or put cold fusion reactors in every home, it will not end world hunger. Instead some of these problems once solved will simply make sense of math, for math’s own gain.

If I have not already given you a good enough impression of my interest in math, some of my favorite movies include: Stand and deliver, The Good Will Hunting, and A Beautiful Mind. Which I highly recommend to anyone who has an interest in math. My non math related movie interests include Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Better off Dead, and Wayne’s World. All of which are 80’s comedy classics that you should own.

I also rather enjoy classic rock, that being everything from Bryan Adams to Metallica. I find that Van Halen and partial fractional decomposition work great together. In all seriousness though, I simply enjoy rocking out as I do my math homework. To give you a little more information my favorite bands include: Def Leppard, U2, Boston, ACDC, and Scorpions.

Outside of math, I am a running enthusiast. I participate in both track and cross country. I also have completed two Ragnars, and am planning to do a marathon this summer. I find it relaxing and a great way to get outdoors. I find that when I say some of these things to people, they look at me like I am crazy. There is a back to the future quote in which when doc brown tells some individuals that in the future people run for recreation, they burst out laughing. I am used to this response, and if you knew some of the 100 or even 200-mile foot races that people do in the their 70’s, you would find what I do mediocre.

I hope to an engineer one day. I am not entirely sure what kind of engineer I want to be, but there is a good amount a flexibility in that. Unfortunately, there is not a do whatever you feel interested in at the moment kind of engineer, or least one that pays well. So on top of math I also really enjoy physics. I was originally thinking about writing my blog about String theory, but I already wrote a 15-page paper about that last semester, and that would not get me anywhere. This way I get to mix it up a little.

That is about it for information about me, but I am not going to lie to you I hate writing. Unfortunately, colleges make it required for some reason I still do not understand, but I will still try my best to use this writing medium to communicate my math endeavors, and discoveries to my audience. At times I will probably lose some of you in the rambling of the enteral workings of some obscure equation, but I hope to improve on that, and spread the great subject that is math.