Chloe Chan - Mathematics lesson 1

Baking bread
In this section Stewart considers whether existence is a discovery or invention. Stewart argues that it is not just invention or discovery that makes existence but a bit of both, as suggested by the title, the mixing of ingredients (invention and discovery) make bread, the existence of something. In the case of discovery the item already exists but was just not known to humans in comparison to invention which suggests taking a discovery and playing with it to make something new. Stewart gives us a guiding question of why maths would be so important if it were invented by people and tells us his answer that maths started in reality and in nature and therefore would apply to reality of life. However maths can lead to new ideas and theories can be made which apply to many different things, baking bread for example started out as a discovery from reality and open paths to new ideas. Stewart’s use of language, of questioning, makes the reader feel involved in the topic which in turn convinces the reader of his view.

In this section I have learnt that maths is one of the most basic yet complex things of life as maths started off naturally yet opened up to never ending branches of unknown ideas.

Lottery Illusion
Here, Stewart argues that mathematics is the source of many other subjects such as biology where the petals found on flowers are Fibonacci numbers, which is due to the cells of flowers. With this, he wonders whether mathematics is innate in nature and within us, where we have the natural tendency to detect and try to correlate things into patterns, which supposedly benefit our survival. Stewart argues that it is due to this natural tendency that we come up with many other theories and formulas. Therefore when watching the lottery we tend to think we see patterns in the lottery numbers and the winners but in actual fact this is just an illusion. He also introduces the idea of aliens having their own type of maths which could be similar or different to ours.

This section has made me realise that it is true that we tend to try and correlate things even if we know something is random. Therefore I think maths really is innate.