Education of Mathematics in Digital World
Mathematics Is The New Age Nutrition In The Digital World
Mathematics skills are required in every business
Mathematics was completely discarded by people at one time. I heard students say, “anything but maths education.” Children would complain that maths does not go into their head at all.
At Jesus & Mary College at the University of Delhi, India when admissions took place every year for an undergraduate degree, Business studies would first get a fill of students, then English Department. Mathematics was clearly not a choice of the students. Very often the seats would go empty.
I would ask students, “Why do you want to join Business Studies/Commerce?” Pat, the answer would be “There are many openings after doing this subject, we can do chartered accountancy, become an entrepreneur, manager in a company.”
I would ask students “Why do you not join mathematics?”, The usual answer was, “I can only be a teacher after doing a course in maths, there are no other openings.”
Whenever I travelled to any country and to any university I would ask students the same question. Most young people said that they did not have a flair for mathematics.
The above stories are no longer relevant. Today, if you specialize in mathematics you can use it in everything. It is multipurpose. It is useful in finance, computers, marketing, big data, artificial intelligence, or cybersecurity. They all require a sound mathematical foundation. In fact, mathematics is the new age nutrition in the digital world
The business studies department, economics, engineering, statistics departments have all introduced many mathematics papers in the stream so that the education of the students becomes complete.
It is relevant to quote what Galileo Galilei the famous Italian philosopher astronomer and mathematician said at a time when there were no digital applications that it was important for everyone to learn mathematics: “If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics”.Today mathematics has derived many more uses.
Mathematics and Digital World Applications
- Data science: In the modern digital world, data science is dependant on computer science and mathematics. A mathematics graduate is nutrition in the digital world. He adds value to the mathematics behind the models. He also helps in innovating the digital models.
2.Artificial intelligence: is most sought after in the digital world but behind the software, the inner understanding of the software is possible only when you have a knowledge of mathematics.
3.Interpretation of results: A mathematics graduate will be able to explain to you why the results are coming in a particular manner and how it can be interpreted and modified. I would like to add to this and say that mathematics can help to improve the models and results.
4. Financial modelling: As a professor of finance, I found that financial modelling has become very important today. A person with a background of mathematics can easily trade in stocks and make money too. In the new field of cryptography, surveyors use trigonometry, operations A mathematician is able to use the financial techniques practically.
Patrick M Byrne an American entrepreneur who was the CEO of Overstock.com stated the importance of mathematics in the field of cryptocurrencies that
“Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a form of money that’s a stable field that the government can’t destroy and can’t distort. Because its creation is governed by the laws of mathematics. It can’t happen any faster or slower than a certain rate, and it all sort of self-adjusts”.
Today everything in the digital world is based on algorithms, number theory, graph theory, probability analysis, and algebra and geometry.
5. Stocks issue, trading, and calculations: A public issue advertises and sets a date for the issue to open only through a calculation of the probability of timing of the issue.
Trading takes place by statistical calculations of previous weeks and trends of movement of stocks. Technical analysis and candlewick models are developed through scientific mathematics applications.
Mathematics consists of numbers, shapes, and patterns, and thus in the digital world applying them becomes a much easier task.
6. Mathematics and travelling: In travelling, mathematics is useful for calculating the miles covered per gallon miles per gallon for daily trips, calculations of detours, and the additional cost in miles, time, and money are calculated through mathematics.
It also calculates the departure times and arrival schedules of aeroplanes. They also calculate the weight of the luggage and surcharges. aviation-relating math regarding the calculation of speed, altitude, and flying time.
Takeaways
#1. Mathematics is application-oriented. It is not a theory that you are going to learn by rote. It should be included in education as a necessity in today’s world.
#2. Mathematics has to be experienced and understood and then applied digitally to all the computer models to innovate and use the models creatively.
#3. Artificial intelligence can be clearly understood and applied with mathematical models.
#4. Scientific calculations for trends in the stock market can be prepared digitally and the health of the economy can be calculated by preparing programmes on the computer.
#5. Mathematics is travel applications too. The calculation of timing and departures and arrivals and weighing luggage and kilometres and miles of travel are all done through Mathematics combinations and permutations digitally.
To conclude:
Mathematics is useful in our daily lives in every way. With the growth of digital applications, there are a lot of complicated calculations that mathematics makes to make things easy for people to live with comfort all over the world.
Mathematics prepares and simplifies numbers, shapes and programmes. It provides trends through data sets digitally through preparing, modifying and innovating and using it through the internet of things and artificial intelligence.
Thus mathematics is truly the nutrition to the digital world making the different applications simple and more effective. Everyone should be educated in basic mathematics.
I would like to end with a quote from the famous Indian mathematician Shakuntla Devi
“Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you numbers”.
