Higher mathematics
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Higher mathematics is a subject that has always seemed completely inaccessible to all but the select few who could breathe in the rarefied atmosphere of the intellectual plane where it lives. Just as mathematics seems to be beyond most people's intellectual grasp, however, it also seemed to make absolutely no difference to the great majority of the population. Number theory, probability theory, mathematical modeling, the mysterious math used in computer technology, and even statistics and mathematical reasoning seemed to have little to do with daily life, work, or anything that was of much interest to the average man, woman, or child. When a mathematician somewhere in Great Britain announced a few years ago that he had solved the problem of Fermat's Last Theorem the news made no difference to the vast majority of people, while a few, vaguely remembering the story of the theorem, understood that this was an extremely clever thing to do. But number theory seemed far more arcane, distant, and forbidding than Chinese politics, Russian poetry, Hindu mythology, or all those words the Eskimos use for snow. Yet, as the example of computers alone can tell us, higher math is leaving its perch and beginning to walk among us. Aside from its forbidding complexity and impracticality, however, mathematics also seems futile to many people. It is merely a matter, it seems, of learning more and more complex maneuvers that have been done a thousand times--just like the arithmetic and a
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ons "can model the distribution of matter in the universe [or] the diffusion of particles in turbulent liquids" (Peterson, "Trails" 104). The potential for mathematical modeling of natural systems is enormous once mathematicians determine the applicability of concepts such as the Levy flight.
Another emerging use of probability theory is the modeling of the "uncertainties of "large aftershocks in varying time intervals" after earthquakes in California (Rydelek, Reasenberg, and Matthews 343). By beginning with a generic mathematical model and introducing real-life data after each earthquake, they will be able to successively improve their ability to predict events that now seem completely random. The movements of biological and geological systems are taken to be inherently unpredictable and are, therefore, particularly suited to the manipulations of probability--as epidemiology is suited by the use of statistical modeling.
Number theory--one of the least practical-seeming of mathematical pursuits--is "the study of subtle properties of ordinary counting numbers," or integers (Cipra 175). The distribution of prime numbers is, for example, a particularly important part of number theory. But, while disdaining anything like pra
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Approximate Word count = 2006
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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