Just the word causes irritation and stress. There’s even a name for it: Math anxiety . Carrying, borrowing, long division, finding the common denominator, solving for x,…all of these procedures that had to be memorized! And it wasn’t forgiving either. A single mistaken step anywhere in the problem always (always) gave you the wrong answer. It’s not surprising, then, that most grew to view math as a necessary evil- magical incantations that might as well have been in Latin;repetitive and incomprehensible rites invoking the spirits for answers to questions, many times questions nobody really cared all that much about. But when one looks past all the procedures and steps to very the core, to the heart of it, there is a deep magic to mathematics that can be observed. In many ways, mathematicians have been explorers and artists in a landscape that exists completely in the mind. And yet that mental landscape has, time and again, given us the tools to truly understand and manipulate the world
