About Math

A warning about expertise.  Especially expertise based on math.

Since the late 19th century, it's been understood that of all the sciences, math is king.  The principle reason that any math beyond adding, subtraction, multiplication and division is taught in elementary school comes from a very strong desire to root out those children who have a natural aptitude for math as early as possible and get them on the right road.  It's for this reason that everyone else is made to suffer — including a lot of teachers, who have no idea this is the purpose of early math classes and so feel duty bound to ensure that every single child in reach learns geometry and, later, algebra.

In 1958, Isaac Asimov [a favourite writer of mine] wrote a short story called The Feeling of Power.  In the story, most humans have forgotten how numbers work, so they can't add or subtract without using a calculator.  The art of performing math with pencil and paper has been lost.  Then a lowly menial technician named Myron Aub reverse-engineers how to do math the old fashioned way; he tells his supervisor, who describes the technique to higher ups until finally the military establishment realises that this makes every person into a potential thinking computer.  When Aub learns that the military is using his discovery to kill people, he commits suicide.  Yet the cat is out of the bag and people are learning again that math gives one "a feeling of power."

Sorry, spoilers ... but you've had 65 years to read the story.  Don't dally.

The story is fine for 1958 when "computer" was still a job title for a human being who figured mathematics with paper and pencil.  We're living in Asimov's future and the mathematics being done in the present is far, far beyond any single human being's ability to calculate in the space of a lifetime.  Were Asimov alive today, he could not realistic propose the story he wrote then.

Generally, when we think of automation putting people out of work, we imagine fairly ordinary jobs like assembly line workers and farming; we're on the cusp of eliminating new positions like Amazon pickers or delivery drivers. 

But expect this trend to go much farther than people expect, because workers surrounding the fields of mathematics are next on the chopping block — and by this I mean engineers.  As things stand now, obviously, there's absolutely no way that I could design anything physical.  Physical things are a collage of measurements, stresses, fit-together parts and environmental factors.  In short, the application of a precise tool for design, math, being used to overcome an extremely imprecise real world.

Over these last five millennia — a mere drop in the bucket of all human existence — we've gotten much better at superimposing our imagination in a theatre of imprecision.  Until now, however, this has required the creation of mathematical tools first, then an education and quality assurance system to codify those tools, so they could be safely applied to make both little and big things, from a toaster to an airline jet.

For that reason, there's unquestionably a very large part of the educated world that feels comfortable in their roles as designers and engineers.  If you're fresh out of university, or heading into one, a warning.  In 30 years, the most important value you'll have is your ability to imagine things that don't exist.  Your value as a technical advisor won't be worth diddly-squat.  There'll be a program that does that for you.  Chances are, your entire association with actual math is going to be remembering that it still exists, in one form at least, though you'll never actually do math personally.

Most are going to be very surprised by that.  And frightened.  And lost.  Mostly because any engineer I've ever known took an attitude that "imagination" was a superfluous thing that humanities and social science students have.  NOT engineers.

By 2050, the best engineer is going to be a humanities graduate.  Who won't need to know one thing about math.