tough question from a 6-year-old

chas · Post by **chas** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 4:32 pm

I was traveling this week. When I called home one evening, my wife said our daughter had a question for me. It was: "Daddy, what's math?" I was totally unprepared, but after four days I still really can't think of a good definition. I haven't looked in any dictionaries or at wikipedia or anything specifically so I could think about it.

I can think of convenient, incomplete, and inaccurate definitions, but nothing that's complete or accurate. The best I could do is to day that math is a way to measure things and describe measurements. Another that's occurred to me since then is that math is the exact or most fundamental science. I think that's accurate but not very descriptive. (Actually the exact part is even problematic when you think about some proofs that are only accepted by a portion of the mathematics community.)

It would be easy to say math is how we manipulate numbers, but I was a math major and I know that very little of advanced math deals with numbers at all.

Any suggestions? I'm interested in people putting forward their own definitions and opinions, not what they find in dictionaries or encyclopedias, which I've consulted since composing this message. Not crazy about what I've found there either.

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 4:50 pm

If I was talking to a six year old I would say Math is using numbers to learn more about the world, and when we study math we learn how to use those numbers the right way.

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 4:59 pm

avanutria wrote:If I was talking to a six year old I would say Math is using numbers to learn more about the world, and when we study math we learn how to use those numbers the right way.

That's good. You could give him a simple example or two also: "If you have two apples and I have one apples, how many apples do we both have?" for example.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:10 pm

I like avanutria's answer. I would definitely try to answer on a 6 year old level. Although you know that the complete definition is much more complex than "math is how we use numbers," your kid's probably not going to grasp more than a whiff of the abstractness of the concept until she's older. There may be a way to hint that there's more, but right now she probably just wants to know about the parts she can understand.

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:27 pm

math is the magic of the universe.

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:17 pm

If you were in the UK and someone asked you "What's math?" you would have to reply "It's like maths, but just one of them."

dwest · Post by **dwest** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 7:15 pm

PallasAthena · Post by **PallasAthena** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 7:44 pm

Math is the launguage of science. It is the way in which we discribe the properties of the physical world.

This part might be a little over a six-year-old's head, but math is also a language of philosophy. Plato and/or Socrates sometimes used math to explain philosophical problems.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 8:29 pm

An ancient link...
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/sasschool/mathlook.html

chas · Post by **chas** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 9:52 pm

mutepointe wrote:math is the magic of the universe.

PallasAthena wrote:Math is the launguage of science. It is the way in which we discribe the properties of the physical world.

This part might be a little over a six-year-old's head, but math is also a language of philosophy. Plato and/or Socrates sometimes used math to explain philosophical problems.

I like both of these, especially Athena's. Thanks.

Lambchop · Post by **Lambchop** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:27 am

Math is something that helps us describe things.

Colors help us understand things. You can't eat green bananas, but yellow bananas are good. Brown bananas are yukky.

Words like hard, soft and fuzzy help us understand things, too. Puppies aren't hard, they're soft and fuzzy.

Math helps us describe things, too. It can tell us how much there is. How many bananas did you eat? How many puppies are there? How many pennies are in my hand? How long is it until Christmas?

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 5:36 am

"The Goddess made the integers: all else is the work of man."

I can't improve on Beth's answer. <applause> And I agree with Steve, and point out "how could you have only one mathematic? It would be lonely."

In fact (at the risk of having the thread removed to the rubber room) I'd say, many of America's problems are due to it only having one mathematic.

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:45 am

djm · Post by **djm** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 7:09 am

I agree with the point about avoiding long answers. Besides quickly losing the interest of a six year old, in my experience, six year olds only randomly ask these questions to get attention or affection. They don't expect a dissertation, and they probably won't remember your answer for more than a minute or two anyways.

How's this for a brief response?: a science (or group of related sciences) dealing with the logic of quantity and shape and arrangement. A lot of the definitions I read above are really only describing arithmetic, which is only one of the related sciences included in the term "maths."

djm

fyffer · Post by **fyffer** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:39 am

OK, you said no quotes from others, but when I first heard this one, it rang so true that I could have written it. It's a quote from Clifford Pickover's book "The Loom of God":

Clifford Pickover wrote:mathematics is the loom upon which God weaves the fabric of the universe

Also, not necessarily the best answer for a 6-year-old, but it's really the best answer I've ever heard.

Highly recommended for the math geek in you.

BTW, this thread bears a call to arms for the other math geeks out there. New thread coming ...