Can we imagine life without mathematics?

“There are things which seem incredible to most men who have not studied mathematics.” as rightly said by Aristotle.

Mathematics is a universal language mutual to all individuals, irrespective of their culture, religion, or gender, and followed all over the world in same manner without any deviation in every sphere of life.

“The Universe is a grand book which cannot be read until one first learns to comprehend the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics…” as commented by Galileo Galilee. 

At a higher level, mathematics helps in developing an analytic bent of mind and aids in better organization of ideas and appropriate expression of thoughts. However at a more general level, , the importance of mathematics for a common man is somehow used, whenever he visits banks, shopping malls, post offices, or deals with business transactions, trade and commerce. We add mathematics to some of our recreational activities, like puzzles, riddles, and so on.

Some uses of mathematics in day to day life:

Mathematics help you determine speed, helps you calculate how much food to get, helps you make a recipe, and lets you know how much you weigh. It tells you how much money you have, how much money you make in a job, what size clothes you wear, and when your favourite show is on, tells you how much taxes to pay, and what time of the year it is.

From poor to rich, everyone has to use mathematics in their lives at some point. A housewife, who has to run her house in the given budget, divides money according to her needs by estimating about the expenses and then spending it according her range.

There are many different kinds of maths we use every day. Ever throw a ball that includes geometry, inertia, spatial calculations, and so on. If you walk; geometry, friction, and again spatial relationship are used.

Living a life without knowing 'Maths' would be like living in null and void. In real life the use of Mathematics can be applicable to every aspect, field, profession and subject like in IT field, in Statistics, in Accounts, in Algebra, in Geometry etc. Precisely it can be said that Mathematics can be used for calculations and finding variations within numbers, amounts, quantities etc; measurements of the frequencies of light, sound, and distance.

Mathematics helps us to have an objective view by quantifying all the visible and invisible things with which we are dealing in daily life .It helps us in reckoning things which are not physically developed like for buildings before construction to ensure if their design is safe or not.

Mathematics is used as a problem solver in every walk of life. In fact it is involved directly or indirectly wherever we go and every thing that we may use like the personal computer or notebook or mobile phone with GPRS that you are using for reading my article hence whatever sources we might be using based on the mathematics.

Mental arithmetic helps us a lot in saving hundreds of pounds or dollars in the supermarket. And if we have knowledge of statistics it will help you us see through the claptrap in television adverts or newspapers.

Imagine we are in the Stone Age and we have some pet animals (like horses, donkeys or any boarding animal) to carry wood on them for fire. One day when there is intense cold and we need extra stack of wood as compare to normal need, for that reason we need more animals to carry extra woods. Here mathematics plays a vital role and can help us to figure out how many extra animals we need to have for extra stack of wood that we need to spend that intense cold day.

Mathematics helps us to have an idea that how much earning or spending has been done and would it be favourable to do a certain activity or not. Mathematics is now being applied everywhere like in the economy of a country, construction of buildings, marking and evaluation of persons. Mathematics is at the core of all the technologies, it's used everywhere, in short we are using mathematics in some form or another everywhere in our daily lives.

We can conclude from the above discussion that a modern life style is completely handicapped and highly improbable, in the absence of mathematics. Unless we are well versed with numbers, we would find it difficult to reach at important decisions and perform everyday tasks. Be it to shop wisely, or refashion a home within a budget, knowledge of mathematics holds the key, and hence, barely necessary.

“Mathematics is the gate and key of the sciences. …Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world.” By Roger Bacon. (Source : http://onionesquereality.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/some-beautiful-quotes-on-mathematics/)

What do you think???