Story Problems

Have you ever con­nect­ed the fact that a math­e­mat­ics prob­lem has the ele­ments of a great story?

What are the ele­ments of a great sto­ry? Many would say that the only thing nec­es­sary for a great sto­ry is good char­ac­ters and a clear prob­lem. Well if math does­n’t have that, then I don’t know what does. 

First, Char­ac­ters: 

Who are the char­ac­ters in a math prob­lem? There are num­bers, vari­ables, oper­a­tors, pos­tu­lates, and the­o­rems, all com­ing togeth­er in a dance. The rules of the math­e­mat­i­cal world are sim­i­lar to the rules in our world. Just like a man can­not fly with­out a plane or device, a num­ber can­not divide itself into zero groups or change. Yes, you heard me, there’s no evo­lu­tion in math­e­mat­ics, which is one rea­son why the major­i­ty of math­e­mati­cians are not evo­lu­tion­ists. But, I digress. 

When we solve a com­plex prob­lem in math­e­mat­ics, we are tasked with ana­lyz­ing the char­ac­ters in the sto­ry with­in their frame­work and mak­ing con­clu­sions. It’s very sim­i­lar to ana­lyz­ing the motives and actions of char­ac­ters in a sto­ry. Why did Fro­do take the ring to Mor­dor when it was impos­si­ble? Why is the square root of a neg­a­tive num­ber impossible? 

These are the same types of ques­tions, fueled by the same imag­i­na­tion, in par­al­lel worlds both cre­at­ed by the imag­i­na­tion of God. Don’t believe me? Math his­to­ry shows that the first great the­ol­o­gy, phi­los­o­phy, and God-seek­ing thinkers were all math­e­mati­cians. Do you know why? Because in their pur­suit of God, these ancient men stum­bled over God’s lan­guage: mathematics. 

Sec­ond, Problem: 

This one seems much more obvi­ous. Math prob­lems abound. There is always some­thing to dis­cov­er in math­e­mat­ics. When did the two cars meet on the road? Where did the graph cross the axis? What two poly­no­mi­als come togeth­er to cre­ate a third polynomial? 

With our prob­lems, we see the lim­i­ta­tions of our char­ac­ters, and the beau­ty of our world. We see the pat­terns in nature as a num­ber sequence, and the graph of the sequence as a visu­al of the pat­tern. We have heroes, like the mul­ti­plica­tive iden­ti­ty, and vil­lains, like sub­trac­tion. The math­e­mat­i­cal world is teem­ing with life, let’s dive into this great world together! 

Great char­ac­ters?

Intense prob­lems?

Math has got it all.