My earliest memory of a relationship with mathematics is filled with a strange horror that’s probably reserved for children of European or Asian parents (mine were the former). Said horror was five millimeter graph paper — to my maladroit, three-year-old hands it may as well have been a nano-grid. Most kids that age are just learning to handle crayons, but I didn’t have those in Ukraine in 1992. Instead, I struggled to fit blue-inked numbers and pluses and minuses perfectionistically in those infinitesimally small, blue squares. That’s recent post-communism for you.

Despite moving to the United States and discovering crayons by the time I entered the first grade, my relationship with math did not improve. There were timed “math facts” that always made me nervous, ridiculous posters about using math in jobs (I was sure I’d become an artist, so that seemed useless), and general boredom associated with the subject. This continued through high school, until I finally opted out: “No, I’m not going to take Calculus. I need to concentrate on portfolios, essays, applications, etc. for art schools — specifically art schools that don’t require this atrocity.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that was a mistake until about halfway through college, via an exponentially-growing passion for science — specifically subatomic and astrophysics — and systems theory. Around age nineteen, it began to set in that all those gaudy, primary-colored posters were lying to me all through school: math was an incredible language for explorers (not just reserved for dull desk jobs). We’d have to become friends if I ever wanted to probe the wonders of our universe in a remotely first-hand way.

Now, I sympathize with Neil deGrasse Tyson’s views about education: although children need to be inspired at a young age (not just conveyor-belted) it’s just as important that adults be educated — be scientifically literate (thus at least somewhat mathematically literate), as well. Personally I’m taking advantage of free, online education: computer science from Udacity, and soon calculus, probably at Khan Academy. I’m all for anything that invites humans young and old to experience the real, sublime “magic” of our natural world, reachable because of math and science. Ultimately, I hope to develop an ever-evolving understanding of the interconnected systems of this world through the combination of STEM fields with art, writing, and other humanities, and to inspire others to wonder.

OS

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