5 Ways To Have Fun With Mathematics
This is the first guest post on .51, and it comes from Alex McFerron, a mathematics and computer science theory hobbyist (that’s right; Alex does this stuff for *fun*!) who answered my call for more math here on the site.
Thanks, Alex!
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Here are five ways to have fun with mathematics right now, without having to review too much of what you’ve forgotten since school.
1. Start a puzzle club.
Logic puzzles, the kind where you break codes, or other interview type puzzles are fun when a job at Google isn’t at stake! Kick back with your friends at a coffee shop or your house and try to figure out puzzles together. There are a lot of puzzle games that you can buy to “mix it up”. Try the harder mathematics puzzles as well as the more fun wooden or metal puzzles.
2. Check out combinatorics, graph theory, and number theory.
These topics do not require a lot of math background. You could be doing research level problems with just a high school math education. These topics do require mathematical sophistication but you don’t need an undergraduate math degree or even a strong understanding of anything but algebra, geometry, and pre-calculus. A lot of the problems are similar to logic problems. For example, how many ways can six people be arranged at a table? You can think about problems like that one, and how to prove it, then read a little combinatorics. Number theory asks questions like, how do you know there are an infinite amount of prime numbers?
3. Boot up your system.
Use your computer to help answer questions you might have or to help find conjectures. This is called experimental mathematics. If you have programming skills, then you can take a mathematics question (aka conjecture) and try to find patterns to answer it. I recommend getting this book and using it as well as your computer skills to answer questions.
4. Take a math class.
If you’ve been working for awhile and haven’t been back to school in years, enroll in a night class. Take introductory algebra or calculus. Community colleges often have basic classes and good teachers to boot. For fun, I went and took trigonometry again at a college and I had a blast because I really didn’t feel any pressure and I was able to just enjoy it.
5. Hire a math tutor to help you read a mathematics book that is too hard for you.
Some math tutors are starving graduate students and do not charge much money. I have done this for as little as $20 an hour. I made a great friend *and*had a lot of fun reading math books that were otherwise too difficult.
Enjoy!
–Submitted to .51 by Alex McFerron.
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