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From: singingbanana
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  • Same thing with science! I hate that people are always asking, 'What's the point?' Even if there is no initial point or goal other than interest and enjoyment, it obviously leads to beneficial things, like pretty much everything we have today.... Plus, these sorts of things keep you thinking!

  • I agree with you, but for people, who do not study maths sometimes it's just useless learning something that mathematicians would consider beautiful. I myself just had a maths exam (I study computer science) and had to learn ways of calculating things that otherwise I would have been able to calculate much easier and better (for me) to understand, so why create a much more abstract and harder to get around method for something easy just for beauty's sake if I will never use what it was made for?

  • though the video ends quite abruptly..lol

  • It inspires me every single time when I hear a scientist/mathematician talk about their work and why they do it. you can see (or hear) do much passion in the way the speak..:)

    It really is annoying when people think that science and mathematics are only for practical purposes, I've came to learn that they are no less an art than art, it just takes a mathematician to see the beauty in it, much like how an artist sees art :)

  • I'm 15 years old and a sophmore in high school and I'm in Precalculus and I constantly find myself asking this question and this is the best answer I've ever heard. Thank you singingbanana. (btw what IS your actual name?)

  • I've been having similar thoughts lately, I fully agree with what you're saying. Mathematics is one of the activities that humanity does, simply because they can, and in doing so we prove that are worth something "more", that we have the creativity to examine the true and the abstract. On top of that, the truth of Maths is less debatable than the humanities. (Also, I recognise you from Numberphile! :D)

  • Oh, this lovely british accent...

  • Could we please get more of these videos? I keep rewatching this just because it's such a great motivational speech.. It's more, actually.. The enthusiasm you say it with ...

  • Comment removed

  • I love this!!! i've had this love for it :) but almost everyone I know only looks at the surface of mathematics and kind of had lost sight of this....I love your passion, very contagious so thanks for doing this

  • You must know your audience. I've observe teachers that fail to teach math to engineers because engineers expect to know the application of it and teachers don't explain that. Some engineers has a bias to see science as a tool, and don't like tools they don't know what to use for. Now if that is the case with some engineers, what about technicians, administrators... etc. They want their math to be practical and provide value to them. They want to know that they paid for a course that's worth.

  • I used to ask myself the same: "what is the point?" I agree with you that it is the wrong question to ask yourself but you have to admit that the question is in many ways fully understandable. However I now see the point.

    It happened whilst speaking to my dad. He is not a mathematician but a philosopher by training, but he specializes in logics. He told me about the "criteria of elegance" and how you also find it in mathematics. It changed me

  • What person could dislike this video? A sad person I bet...

  • I wish that YouTube had been around when I was in school, and that my teachers could have used videos such as yours as tools. I hope they are doing so today. The passion and appreciation expressed here is heartfelt and infectious. I highly appreciate your videos - they are both educational and entertaining. Thank you.

  • Very well said. I am also amazed for a slightly different reason, it pains me to hear people ask "what is the application of this mathematics result" as if there could possibly be something more important than the ability of humans to reason through problems.

  • I agree 100% with you and I always say that to my students, but you said it in a very nice way. May I translate your video into portuguese and post it in my Math Vlog? Of course I'll refer to you. :) Then I'll ask my students to watch it.

  • @matematicario Go ahead.

  • @singingbanana I just did it! It's in portuguese, maybe you won't understand. I adapted your speech. Thanks! I'm posting it here as a video response.

  • @matematicario Thanks!

  • Years ago, when my physics teacher was in univercity, at his last semester he had a lesson called "Nuclear magnetic resonance" and all students were like "C'mon... give us a break" because it was the 2nd year that this subject was even taught.

    15 years later he read at the headlines the discovery of MRI, which is using the exact same property!

    The discovery was from a person 3 years older than my teacher; he just found a use for something that was only useful as a theory!

  • i always saw math as a form of logic,a numerical one,when i was like 10,glad to know i wasnt as dumb as i thought

  • thanks to your videos, especially this one I want to study mathematics, or at least learn more about them ^^

  • a certain number+a certain number=a certain number. that makes a lot of sense. music is a easy way to share yourself out. depends on what type of music. country is ALWAYS about either drugs, alcohol, sex, and women. and what country writers do is they put lyrics in and write clever lyrics for the whole family to listen to.

  • I kinda needed this.. I love maths :) .. Recently I've qualified for the IXth grade national Olympiad so now I have to study.. a lot.. and I'm not doing it because it has to have a practical use, but because I enjoy it and because it stimulates my brain :)

  • I think a big reason people like your videos is that it is clear to everyone you do math because you like it. Most teachers make math really boring. It is something you have to learn to learn something that is actually interesting such as physics. I think I would have done better in math classes with someone like you who is clearly actually interested in the subject than most of my teachers in school and later, in collage, who seemed to teach math to get a paycheck.

  • While this may be somewhat uplifting to mathematicians, I've had a problem with this in the field of engineering. I usually like to tie the mathematics I'm doing to a tangible process, just so I have a reason to remember it, and also so I have a "intuitive tiedown," something like a reality check that lets me know I'm in the right order of magnitude or in the right set of units. I wouldn't ask "What is the point?", I'd ask "What is an application of this?"

  • I don't really care what people have to say about mathematics. For me, Math = Beauty. Sure it is useful, as you say, in science, but to use mathematics on only an applicational basis is to some how smother that beauty. And this is coming from an engineering student.

  • Its like candy, it doesn't need a point, thats why its candy

  • I agree with virtually everything that you said in this video. The asthetics of the mathematics of tiling are really the same thing as the asthetics of tiling its self. But, something that I disagree with you on, to be a little pedantic, is that you said that we do math because it's clever. There are many things that people do that are clever, but absolutly horrible. Like improving killing machines.

    I also disagree, unfortunatlly ( I wish I agreed), that the justificiation of math is the same

  • The statement at 1:40 was great! I want to quote you in the future!

  • Gosh! You are perfectly handsome. I'm geting repetitive :D

  • My maths teacher is really philosophical and he goes on about there being no point, it's just all an enriching game and I have to say I really agree with him.

  • i hate dat queztion too! ..but oo well, we're different from them(:

  • math = numbers

    numbers go infinitely long

    numbers = infinitely long

    life = short

    numbers/life = infinitely long/short

    numbers/life = infinitely long

    numbers = infinitely long life

    infinitely long life = heaven and thus numbers = heaven and since numbers = heaven that means math = heaven yaah!

  • @anticorncob6 Google "Troll Math"

  • Applied vs. pure mathematics.

  • @buffita74 I wonder if there's theoretical engineering since it seems  like it always applies to something from an outsider's point of view.

  • Right on! I love mathematics and I hate when people always ask the point of it. This made me smile and say YES! out loud. Thanks great video :)

  • I think logical fallacy is beautiful as well, simply because it's the opposite of mathematics. That's why I like Lewis Carroll's work so much.

  • Mathematics is too often thought of as arithmetic and nothing more. I think it should be renamed proofamatics.

  • @theboombody I love this!

  • I understand and agree. I just have a terrible time convincing my students of this.

  • @singingbanana I like what you're saying about math being about finding the truth, and how it's tied to philosophy. I've always disliked math, and found it boring, but I was never taught in school how math relates to philosophy, nor was I usually taught "practical application" of many of the types of math. I'd ask, "why am I learning this"? to my teacher, and the answer would usually be, "to pass this class and get a degree so you can get a job." I'm sure many others are given that response.

  • what is the point of this video ?

  • Thank you for saying this, singingbanana

  • The point is (x1, y1)

  • As a programmer I use math all the time. Even though the computer does the calculations, I have to figure out which calculation would work to give me the result I need. And as a musician, I use math to write songs, because I'm not very creative, I take music theory, and mix it with a sequence of numbers so I can both remember it and come up with something that sounds good.

  • I'm torn watching this video. I love the enthusiasm and sheer passion for the subject matter, but at the same time it makes me a little sad, as most of what you show is way above my head/understanding, and so I feel like I'm missing out on something I have an interest in, but can't quite grasp.

  • @retrovertigo2006 Gah, I feel the same way a lot of the time!

  • you make me feel proud to study mathematics :D

  • When I was 12 (1965), we were doing addition and subtraction on a number circle - numbers 1 through 5 (no zero). When we finished the section I asked the teacher if we would be using number circles in later sections. She said we would probably never see them again. I asked we spent a week on them. She said, "You get a 'Poor' in conduct." Next year I was put in the slow track math class. So, don't ask for the "point of it" or give the teacher a hard time.

  • @HaslamCorp she was a terrible teacher, that is a perfectly reasonable question, especially for a 12 year old. That being said I agree with everything in this video.

  • Fantastic video! This is a massive breath of fresh air. I love maths and am training to teach it - but feel constantly like I have to make everything practical and relevant to everyday life when that isnt what maths is always about.

    Did you (fairly) recently do a talk at Keele Uni about the Enigma machine btw?

  • @quantumlolz Thanks. Yes, that was me.

  • there needs to be more smart people on youtube like yourself.

  • thank you.

    

  • It was just as beautiful as every other vid you've uploaded, but it is so unfamiliar without your regular quotes "Hello everyone!" and "If you're happy, thanks for watching"

  • @FoTillidan totally agreed; just wanted to point out that i'm pretty sure he says "if you have been, thanks for watching" =)

  • Just missed the: "If you have been, thanks for watching."

  • ok so there was three men that go on a roadtrip.

    They stop at a motel and the manager tells them that its 30 dollars per night.

    They all get settled in and the manager starts to feel bd because it was really 25 dollars per night. So he gives the bellhop 5 dollars to give the men. on the way up the bellhop thinks to himself"wait a minute 5 dollars cant be split up into 3 ways) so he takes two of the dollars. Each man gets one dollar back. so

    9+9+9=27

    27+2=29

    Wheres the other dollar?

  • @DREWTampa1 It's 25+2 = 9+9+9

  • @WhatforNameIsThat how so

  • I think another way to put it is that recognizing new relationships between theorems taught in school is the difference between being a math user and a mathematician... ok that sounds dumb.

  • define relation ::= Loves(Programming, Math) = true

    define relation ::= Likes(Self,this.video) = true

  • accouting has nothing to do with math, should have studied actaury or statistics

  • When I was in high school and I had to learn all those mathematics stuff I was like "oh gosh, it's so hard..". But when I got everything right and started to solve math exercises I was like "man, this is so fantastic!". Having good teacher or lecturer is very important so I'm glad we have singingbanana! Btw. I study sociology nowadays ;P

  • WOW! Your passion for mathematics is really inspiring...I'm a 15 year old but I can relate to what your feeling...It speaks out about yourself...I never really asked myself that until today...For me mathematics is like love...what's the point? its because you do everything for that person even though what you do seems nothing for her...but still we insist everything even if sometimes what we do for her is useless to her eyes...i feel broken..still...

    Happy Valentine's Day..!

  • That was really inspriration James

  • It is lovely to see your obvious passion. My late spiritual teacher often said that "What ever you truly love is your liberation."

  • That's some wise words from a wise man!

  • i love maths

  • OMG this is exactly what i think and feel about mathematics.

  • Excellent

  • that is just what i needed!

  • 0 people don't understand maths. yay!

  • Pick a 3-digit number. Reverse it, and subtract the larger from the shorter. Reverse the result and add it together. 1089. "So what's the point?" Because it's clever.

    You speak from a level of understanding that few people have a chance to step on.

  • I do maths for the pride of winning the fields medal.

  • well said my friend

  • AMEN

  • great video! I kind of feel the same way about some of those issues you discussed. But i was never able to put them into words. Awesome, once again. loved it =)

  • *starts slow clap*

  • So right

  • im currently getting my associates degree in mathematics.

    not sure what work i will find but i find the subject fascinating 

  • Well said Dr. Grime

  • What's the point of this video??

    Lol jk. I love your videos, keep up the good work.

  • I love

    Solving

    Equations

    X.

  • This is a great video, one that should be shown to students in public schools everywhere. Unfortunately, most would probably just brush it off and laugh; but at least it would catch the attention of some.

  • it all depends on who your teacher is.. I had one guy who was so boring I couldn't stand it and hated math that year.. but when I got a professor who loved what he did, it make a world of a difference! it makes you wanna learn!

  • Every math teacher in Canada needs this video to be shown to their class.

  • Ah, Singingbanana, you have stated the opinion and idea that I've had for EVERY SECOND of my LIFE! I just don't understand why so many people think that math is so useless. I'm finding more and more that Math is more prominant in my life than I could ever explain. Math helps me make life far easier and helps me determine my choices and all. I think that studying math simply makes people smarter cause it's not about manipulating numbers, but using logic and understanding.

  • I would of compare mathematic to being a language; in that it is a way to communicate information and ideas.

    If you think about it you'll see it is a language; but as you pointed out it goes into ideas we can't work with using just english alone!

  • I'd sit in your lectures all year, I reckon. Despite not understanding a single blob of it. I'm obsessed with physics but I can only go so far without learning math, eh? One day I'll get studying.

  • Art is also manipulating a theory, let's say color or light theory, to make your audience believe what they're seeing. Whether it's real or not, whether it's even considered art or not, it's our goal to have others appreciate it, just like math. It may not work every time, but that's why we try and try again. We experiment. If we find a way that works, beautiful; it works. If it doesn't, we persevere until it does.

  • @101blender That sounds familiar :)

  • I love u !

  • mathematics is really as abstarct as it gets

  • mathmatics is the science of numbers, it's purpous is to understand numbers, how they interact so to say, that fact that those numbers add up to a ceratin number is the whole point. it might not be useful now, but later perhaps we will find out that star, or planets or molecules or even population act in the same way

  • that was very good

    you could be an inspirational speaker

  • Maybe this is an oversimplification, but I look at math as solving puzzles. And I do love me some puzzles.

  • I really cant figure out math i like languages better ;)

  • you know why the student asked that annoying question? That is because they were put into a education system they dont not understand or enjoy, you have to admit education is a system in which they only prepare people for a job, the only people who enjoy studying are people like you.

  • its the patterns that define it all. our minds are wired to appreciate, grow and develop off of patterns, how do you think computers "learn" nowadays. the patterns are its practical purpose, the beauty of it. music is a sequence of notes in a particular manipulation, art is a sequence of colors in a particular position and manipulation, just like a locus is a series of points in a particular series and manipulation, or a computer code is the same thing for a developed purpose. thats the point

  • @eaturfeet653 I like this.

  • @singingbanana

    God knows how many times I did math in high school and came up with results noone had ever found before (and not in a good way).

    I'll admit I often wondered what the point of math was, especially because I despised calculations and wanted to be a lawyer. I'm currently studying law, but I'm no longer considering mathematics evil. The reason why (cheesy but true) is you. I adore your videos and your vibrant way of explaining math. I wish my math teachers had been more like you. =)

  • A better question would have been: So what? Who cares? Not "What's the point?"

  • Completely agree with you as a pure mathematician :)

  • Very well said. As a computer science student, I am often asked why i write certain programs, or do things the way i do. My answer is pretty much the same as yours: Why not?

  • Thank you so much.I have been asking this question to every single math teacher i ever had and none of them answered me.They just ignored me.Thanks again!

  • I love mathematics :)

  • said as true man would.

  • My brother is a mathematician and I'm studying physics, but he often ask what is the point of proof or analysis, since I'm a physics student, we often assume everything works and no need any proof on the maths side and that itself got us so far. Yes I agree some maths are needed even there's no practical use "yet", especially imaginary numbers, I asked what's the point before, but now every lecture I go to involves imaginary numbers. Hehe can you answer why maths need to do lots of proof?

  • I invented a perfectly round nail, someone asked me "What is the point?" (joke)

  • I agree as far as the study of mathematics for its own sake is concerned, but if you take a subject that is only concerned with mathematics to achieve a point - let's say a mechanic who needs some formula to build an ingenious device - then we have a situation where the maths he learns should help him achieving that goal. Like a director has to know about music, but he mustn't play an instrument or write his own songs to use music in his films.

  • How about this? |H| = i. The absolute value of a number is a complex number!

    |aH + b| = |a|i + |b|.

    H^2 or H raised to any power other than 0 or 1 is undefined.

    Any paradoxes?

  • Damned right!

  • More of these little blog videos ^^

  • the point is there is no point needed

  • So glad that there are people like you out there. It's so hard to find someone who is a passionate mathematician quite like yourself. Keep enlightening us good sirr. Thank you for your videos.

  • I like your opinion really much.

    A lot of things wouldn't exist for mathematics.

    And if you only do things with practical purpose, then you can't do anything for fun anymore, like watching a movie, because what would be the purpose of that?

  • .. this math shit we teach in school at the moment... i will like never use than in my entire life..... and u cant change my mind..

  • @orbslack Cool

  • @orbslack Some jobs need advanced math and some don't. All need at least some, even counting. Yours probably won't need the advanced math, but you should still know it. So SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSCCCC­CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCRRRRRRRRR­RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEE­EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW­WWWWWWWWW YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOO­OOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!

  • @orbslack the way they teach it in school I agree it's is dull to some degree that's why I subscribed to singingbanana and vinheart so I can learn it in a fun awesome way

  • @orbslack We can't change your mind because you won't reply back.

  • What's the point in maths? I think it is me seeking more knowledge that keeps me enjoying maths. And even if it has no practical use it is still knowledge.

  • I think the opinion that maths has to have a practical purpose comes from maths lessons. Since you said they were Sixth formers they are still being taught maths and if it is the same as when I done maths then the teacher will always say how this maths can be applied in real life. Unfortunately they don't get to see the amazing things maths can do, and even though I'm a physics student, I still enjoy the maths that really has no real world purpose but it just looks cool.

  • I'm not sure whether you know, but they recently discovered that Fibonacci numbers are in most pieces of music from Bach, hidden.

  • no wonder i suck at maths! puh!....and...2nd comment! in your face 1st comment! lol 1st ist the worst, 2nd is the BEST! :D

  • not first

  • hey, have you ever read the graphic novel Logicomix ?

    I just finished it and thought you might like it.

    i know its totally off topic but just give it a shot

  • @stardude3396 It's on my shelf. I may even review here when I've read it.

  • @singingbanana read it its a novel with depth totally recommended :)

  • 1 st comment :D

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