by Jason Marshall

As you saw in, What is Math? real math isn’t just about counting and crunching numbers. It’s about exploring the properties of shapes, patterns, logic, algorithms, programs, and the relationships between all of these things. It’s about finding elegant and beautiful connections that naturally exist both in the real world and in the perfect mathematical one. It’s full of puzzles and mysteries. And it’s—no joke—full of really fun stuff!

So if math is so much fun, why do so many people think they hate it? I think that most people don’t actually hate math. They just think they do because they’re confused about what math really is. I mean, sure, some people really and truly do hate math…and that’s okay—we don’t all have to love the same stuff. You prefer dogs, I prefer cats…and so on. But I’m pretty sure that many people who think they hate math just haven’t been properly introduced to it.

Why is that? Well, the first kind of math we learn in school is arithmetic—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division—and that’s often tough for a lot of people to master in those early years. So from that point on, many of us associate arithmetic—something we may very well hate—with the entirety of math. And, as a result, many people end up thinking that they hate all of math…before they’ve even have a chance to get to know it! It’s like a potentially gifted musician deciding they hate music simply because their parents play nothing but 1970s disco. That’d be a tragedy, right? Indeed, and it’s also a tragedy when people don’t ever hear the rest of the music of math!

If you need more convincing, check out my eBook Why Math Isn’t an Awful Nerd. It shows you that if you give math a chance, you just might find that it’s actually pretty cool.