A view of Mathsland

To most people, mathematics is that subject they have always had difficulty understanding. It
is a form of communication, a kind of strange language in which complete sentences must
have something called an equals sign or some other equally strange symbol. It appears to be a
form of the English language but interlaced with rows of austere symbols and
incomprehensible formulae (some Martian language!).

For different reasons, the majority of the world's `educated' population, by the time they
graduate from high school, have already made up their minds that mathematics is difficult
and that nothing new ever happens in mathematics. My suspicion is that this uninformed
majority spreading these unfounded rumors have no personal experience with mathematics.
They probably heard this story from a friend who in turn had heard rumors from elder
brothers and sisters that mathematics is a difficult subject. Believing this lie and obviously
lacking self-confidence and motivation, most decide to give up before they even give it a try.

The world of mathematics is an ever-changing one. It is a world highly endowed with

Mathematics has been likened to a land-mass -- a continent (like Africa!) comprising a

Let us now take a closer look at some of the individual countries. Firstly, Algebra. This land
has very close cultural ties with the Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East. The
word Algebra itself comes from the Arabic al-jabr, which means putting together different
parts, or a reunion of parts (perhaps like fitting together pieces in a puzzle).

In Algebra the main economic activity is the study of number systems. There are entities with
names like integers, vectors and matrices and rules like addition, subtraction, multiplication,
etc and living in Algebra you learn how to apply these rules to the entities mentioned earlier
to come up with new entities which you then export to other mathslands. For example, given
the entities 2 and 3 and the rule "minus" you may deduce that 3-2=1. You may then export
the new entity 1 to Statistics land where it plays an important role. For instance, the
statisticians, the name given to the inhabitants of this land, believe that the probability of any
event occurring cannot be greater than this entity.

Algebra or the study of Algebra dates back centuries and one of the earliest books on the
subject was written by Diophantus of Alexandria, Egypt, in the third century! A book with
the Arabic title ilm al-jabr wa'l-mukabala by a Persian mathematician named Abu Ja'far
Muhammad ibn Musa, popularly known as al-Khowarizm which means the man of
Khowarizm (Khowarizm is now called Khiva in Uzbekistan in the former USSR), seems to
have popularized the word al-jabr. The word Algebra first appeared in the year 1551 in a
book called Pathway of Knowledge written by Robert Recorde, an Englishman who was at
that time teaching at the University of Cambridge.
Analysis is another massive country. The backbone of its economy is what is called
Functions. These are simply rules that assign a fixed output to a given input. A simple
example of a function is f(x) = x2 called a squaring function. To visualize what this function
says; think of a magician with an empty basket. You put two oranges in his basket and a
moment later the magician pulls out four oranges from the basket. If you put in three oranges
you get nine back and so on. Basically this is a country full of magicians and black magic!

Then there is Geometry. The inhabitants of this land are architects and surveyors. They study
shapes of objects and space. They are interested in shapes like squares, circles etc and their
properties. This special province is usually called Euclidean Geometry. In another province,
called Topology, the people are more interested in those geometrical features which do not
change when an object is twisted, stretched or deformed in any way. Mind you, the natives of
these lands can deal with objects in more than the usual two or three dimensions. Four or
even higher dimensions is not unheard of.

A brief mention of Number Theory. This is the dominion of spies! For instance they study the
properties of prime numbers and their factors so that they can write secret codes to hide
information or try to break into other peoples computers and data bases to steal economic,
military or other such secrets. This is called cryptography but is only one of the many
fascinating things they do.

Finally, Computer Science. This is a country whose ideology is not clearly defined. It is
perhaps like Turkey, not too sure where its future (and past!) lies, East or West? It is said that
Computer Science is the science of software or the study of Algorithms. The word Algorithm
is derived from the Arabic al-Khowarizm, the name of the famous Uzbekistani
mathematician mentioned earlier. Basically an algorithm is a method or procedure one uses
to solve a given set of problems. Thus for instance, presented with a set of numbers
2, 4, 6, 8, 10 ... we can work out the principle of the succession of these numbers. The
principle seems to be "Add 2 to the previous number to get the next number". This principle
is then called an Algorithm.

The problem lies in deciding the exact nature of the relationship between software and
mathematics. For example, is software like mathematics or is it in fact mathematics?
According to David Gelernter (an American professor of Computer Science at Yale
University) there are two schools of thought on this issue. There are those who believe that
writing a computer program and constructing a mathematical proof are equivalent and
interchangeable activities. Thus the programming languages (tools used for writing software)
should be defined mathematically using a series of equations.

The other school of thought contends that designing a program is very different from doing a
mathematical proof; in fact it's more like designing a car. You need a different set of technical
skills. It is clear therefore to this group that programming ought to be defined in clear simple
English and not in a series of mathematical equations.

Well, I do hope you enjoyed your guided tour of Mathsland and hope you will decide to
come back for a further visit or perhaps settle here permanently. It is a land full of promise
and many more uncharted territories, waiting to be discovered by you.