June 11, 2009
“Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes ." -Mickey Mouse.
How pleasant would it be to count to only 20?
Twenty gazillion is more like what we have to count to these days, and that is making many of us tired. Tired of numbers, that is!
I am talking about really big numbers. Numbers that describe the latest woeful gigantic economic figures, inexplicable stimulus package numbers, and gargantuan financial deficit amounts. Numbers most of us do not comprehend, let alone absorb.
Big numbers are bantered about everywhere as though they are not big at all.
It doesn't really matter who is using them either; it just matters that they are too big to make sense.
Everywhere we look or listen, it seems we find immeasurable numbers, in newspapers, on the radio and television, and in speeches.
Charlie Brown would be saying "arghhh" to all these big numbers and unfathomable math problems, equations, theories, and statistics that are thrown at us incessantly. Lucy might be screaming.
These days, I don't even want to enter my prescription number into the drug store's automated refill system on the phone any more. It's too long.
Do not ask me a math problem either. Such as, how many times can one subtract 7 from 83, and what is left afterwards? I might snap back, "You can subtract it as many times as you want, and it leaves 76 every time!"
Yet, I understand that all of life is about numbers. Math author Dean Schlicter explains, "Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics."
Paul Erdos, renowned Hungarian mathematician, writes that numbers are not only essential but also beautiful and says, "Why are numbers beautiful? It's like asking why is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony beautiful. If you don't see why, someone can't tell you."
And at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), according to Anthony's Blog, students there dearly love numbers. Numbers cannot get too big or ineffable for them.
Anthony blogs: "Here at MIT, just about everything is referred to by its number. To get from East Campus to LaVerde's Market, you enter Building 66, pass through Buildings 56, 16, 8, 10, and 3, and emerge from the basement of Building 7. And when you register for classes, you speak of taking 3.091, 8.01, 18.01, and 21W.784. Tell someone you're taking Physics 1, and they'll ask 8.01 or 8.012?"
Numbers are important to Anthony and his friends, and in truth, they are just as important to the rest of us.
Our lives are filled with numbers, ad infinitum: speed limits, Social Security numbers, entry codes, fax and phone numbers, bank account numbers, and student numbers. They define us, and yes, they control us as well.
And unfortunately, so do big, nonsensical numbers.
Perhaps, we should consider the prophetic view of an expert mathematician, Albert Einstein, who once cautioned, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
