What do I know about math? The more I considered the question, the more I understood that we all know more about math than we may realize.
Big thanks to my friend Kate Ertmann—a lover of math—for encouraging me to write an essay about math and its role in our lives. She also provided editorial guidance throughout and helped to get my piece published by the Mathematical Association of America.
One of the playful aspects of this essay is the liberal use of math-based idioms. I managed to fit a bunch of them into the piece, including “go figure,” “divide and conquer,” and “back to square one.”
I wrapped up the short essay with these thoughts:
Maybe it’s time to remind ourselves that our best writing, art, and music are all reliant on math. When we recognize a distinct but familiar shape, or hear a pleasing rhythm and rhyme, the art is speaking to us in our language, and more often than not, that language—our structure for conveying meaning—is mathematical.