Usefullness of Mathematics in Everyday Life Essay

Humans possess a wide range of attributes and characteristics, of which one of the most funda- mental features is that of curiosity. This curiosity has led man to wonder, ponder and then learn. The curious nature of humans drives them to always try to find solutions to the puzzling mysteries behind their ideas and thereby ending up inventing and innovating, extending the boundaries of science and technology. Babylonians and Egyptians used arithmetic, algebra and geometry for taxation and other financial calculations, for building and construction, and for astronomy. To deal with the new dynamics that had arisen from the work of Sir Issac Newton and Galileo Galilei the creation and development of calculus was required. All of them made use of the fundamental tools and items at their disposal to achieve this, but would not have been successful without the one crucial tool - knowledge of mathematics. Mathematics is a language - the language of science and it comes as no surprise that mathematics is vitally important when explaining any phenomenon or scientific theory or proving scientific laws.

2. Describe the pattern of growth in the “Number of people told” column for both Scenario A and Scenario B.

In an Op-Ed by Andrew Hacker “Is Algebra Necessary,” he explains why math is a difficult over glorified subject, that must be removed from high schools and universities. However, Through the power of education, the language of numbers helps us make important decision and preform everyday tasks (learner.org). Math, for many is a challenging subject, but as technology advances, classrooms tailor lessons for students who prefer to engage hands on. Therefore, numbers, symbols and letters are not only for the classroom, but also the real world. I believe math is an important subject, removing it from high schools and universities is not the answer, instead it is necessary to implement technology because math will always be used.

During World War II, the Germans used a type of code that is almost impossible to break. They used this code to communicate between each other and would get directions of where to go and also state where their locations are through that code. What made that code unique was the way that they used it. The way their code worked would be that someone would write a letter in a machine, and then the machine would print a coded version of the message. But that was not the worst part of it. At the end of every day, they would change the key to the messages, all at the same time in a synchronized manner. The way that the Enigma machine was built made it even more complicated to understand. “There are approximately 150,000,000,000,000 - that is, 150 million million - possible combination” (Claire Ellis “Exploring the Enigma”). Alan Turing started working in a

5 remarkable British scientists had gotten their hands on an actual Enigma machine smuggled out of Berlin. They had put tremendous effort into decoding the Nazi's messages by using their cryptanalytic abilities but had failed because of the lack of information on the machine's

“the keyboard for inputting letters, the scrambler unit for encrypting the letters and the lamp board for displaying the enciphered letters” (Lendl). In order to break the Enigma Machine, the code breakers had to find the daily settings that the German used and understand them. However, it is important to know that Polish cryptographers already broke the Enigma machine in 1932 as Marian Rejewski reconstructed a replica of the Enigma i.e. Bomba machine. However, Turing used Rejewski’s ideas and improved the bombe machine so that the machine could go through all the possible combinations of the Enigma rapidly (Lendl). The polish Bomba inspired Alan Turing for the construction of his own Bombe machine. The Bombe machine was crucial for the breaking of Enigma’s signals. This machine is not considered as a computer and does not perform calculation, but was designed “to carry out a systematic search to determine the following components of an Enigma key: the rotor order, the ‘rotor core starting positions’, and some of the ‘steckers’” (Carter). Due to the work of the Bletchley Park codebreakers, the United Kingdom had access to the German communications and could predict future naval attacks, this allowed the prevention of several

The work of the British codebreakers at Bletchley Park in deciphering the German Enigma code was vital in giving the Allied navies the edge in the Battle of the Atlantic. In February 1942, however, the German code was improved, resulting in ‘the Drumbeat crisis’ when shipping losses were their greatest – until March 1943, when the German code was again broken.

Geometry and Algebra are so crucial to the development of the world it is taught to every public high school in the United States, around 14.8 million teenagers each year (National Center for Education Statistics). Mathematics is the engine powering our world; our stocks, economy, technology, and science are all based off from math. Math is our universal and definite language “I was especially delighted with the mathematics, on account of the certitude and evidence of their reasonings.” (Rene Descartes, 1637).

“With German invasion imminent in 1939, the Poles opted to share their secrets with the British, and Britain's Government Code and Cipher School (also known as GC&CS) Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, became the centre for Allied efforts to keep up with dramatic war-induced changes in Enigma output.” (Andrew Lycett, BBC.co.uk) If the Allies had access to decoded German communication, then they would have the upper hand. The Germans were so confident in the Enigma code that they used it to encrypt most all of their messages during the war. Since it was a difficult and sensitive task, Bletchley Park needed Britain’s best minds to work together. “He (Alan Turing) was already working part-time for the British Government’s Code and Cypher School before the Second World War broke out. In 1939, Turing took up a full-time role at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire-” (Imperial War Museums). Alan Turing was a very intelligent mathematician and at this point, he was proving this to many others. His genius was exactly what this problem needed. After Britain declared war on Germany, they immediately sent people to work on cracking the Enigma. It was believed to be an impossible task, and yet they put their best efforts into working on it with the help of

Mathematics, study of relationships among quantities, magnitudes, and properties and of logical operations by which unknown quantities, magnitudes, and properties may be deduced. In the past, mathematics was regarded as the science of quantity, whether of magnitudes, as in geometry, or of numbers, as in arithmetic, or of the generalization of these two fields, as in algebra. Toward the middle of the 19th century, however, mathematics came to be regarded increasingly as the science of relations, or as the science that draws necessary conclusions. This latter view encompasses mathematical or symbolic logic, the science of using symbols to provide an exact theory of logical deduction and inference based on

In today’s society mathematics is a vital part of day-to-day life. No matter what a person is doing at home or at the workplace, he/she is constantly using different mathematics skills to simply function. Then what does this mean for mathematics education? When someone needs to utilize a skill every day then he/she needs a strong background in the skill. Therefore, today’s students need more than a just a working knowledge of mathematics or enough knowledge to pass a test. Today’s students need to understand how mathematics works and how to utilize mathematics skills in the best way possible.

Mathematics, like every creation of man, have evolved without really knowing how far you can get with them: the scope of the computer, physics, chemistry, algebra, all are evidence of this. Every aspect of our culture is based in some way or another in Mathematics: language, music, dance, art, sculpture, architecture, biology, daily life. All these areas of measurements and calculations are accurate. Even in nature, everything follows a precise pattern and a precise order: a flower, a shell, a butterfly, day and night, the seasons. All this makes mathematics essential for human life and they can not be limited only to a matter within the school curriculum; here lies the importance of teaching math in a pleasure, enjoyable and understandable way. Mathematics is an aid to the development of the child and should be seen as an aid to life and not as an obstacle in their lifes.

Mathematics has contributed to the alteration of technology over many years. The most noticeable mathematical technology is the evolution of the abacus to the many variations of the calculator. Some people argue that the changes in technology have been for the better while others argue they have been for the worse. While this paper does not address specifically technology, this paper rather addresses influential persons in philosophy to the field of mathematics. In order to understand the impact of mathematics, this paper will delve into the three philosophers of the past who have contributed to this academic. In this paper, I will cover the views of three philosophers of mathematics encompassing their

Mathematics is the one of the most important subjects in our daily life and in most human activities the knowledge of mathematics is important. In the rapidly changing world and in the era of technology, mathematics plays an essential role. To understand the mechanized world and match with the newly developing information technology knowledge in mathematics is vital. Mathematics is the mother of all sciences. Without the knowledge of mathematics, nothing is possible in the world. The world cannot progress without mathematics. Mathematics fulfills most of the human needs related to diverse aspects of everyday life. Mathematics has been accepted as significant element of formal education from ancient period to the present day. Mathematics has a very important role in the classroom not only because of the relevance of the syllabus material, but because of the reasoning processes the student can develop.

Morten Tyldum, the director of the film, explains that what caused him taking up on this project was the fact that “[Alan] did all these amazing things, and he’s in the shadows of history. It’s all because he has this shameful ending as a gay man, where he’s ridiculed and his work suffered” (Castillo, Monica). If it were not for Turing, laptops, ipads, and other forms of technology would not have existed without the concept of computer science, and it definitely would not have been as advanced as it is today. On a side note, Alan Turing had cracked the Enigma with the help of another mathematician, Gordan Welchman, but cracked Germany’s naval Enigma single handedly (Hodges, Andrew). In effect, this shortened the war by two years, which in turn saved millions of people’s