Math and Other School Subjects

Math is completely a product of human thinking, possibly triggered by evolutionary pressures. It begins as a way of identifying patterns around us and quickly develops into an abstract discipline with its own structure & logic and with apparently no relation to physical phenomena. In the ultimate sense it develops several ways of critically thinking about any issue and provides tools to analyse, understand and extend ideas. Hence ideas from Math are necessary for the development of and learning of almost all other subjects.

The role of math in other school subjects can be studied at two levels.

1. How math or ideas from math are used currently in the study of the subject? This again can be studied at two levels

   1. Specific use of math ideas like equations, formulae, graphs etc

   2. Use of general tools which have been developed with the use of math. When we use some of these tools, we may not even be aware of the role of math in the development of the tool!

2. How math has helped historically in the development of the subject?

These may help a student to get an idea of the role of math in development of science, technology and many other subjects. It may also trigger thinking about future career possibilities. Subjects, other than languages, study physical, economic, social & psychological phenomena. They study various aspects in their discipline and try to find cause-effect relationships. Mathematics provides them means of representing various parameters in terms of certain “defined” numbers or algebraic expressions and the relations between them in terms of equations. An understanding of mathematics would make it easier to understand the concepts & processes in other subjects.

More than anything else, it may provide some answers to teachers on the eternal question posed by students about the usefulness of learning math!

Let us look at some of the general tools developed by or with math which can be used in both learning, analysis & research in any subject.

General Tools Provided by Math

Data Analysis, Statistics & Data Presentation

In any subject discipline a lot of data has to be collected, organized and analysed to look for patterns & relations. For example, the study of human migrations, which is a part of pre-history, requires the analysis of DNA samples from populations around the world to tease out patterns of migration. Statistical analysis reveals which factors are related and which are not.

Computers, Software, Digitalization & Internet

These most dramatic developments in the last 5 decades, are mainly based on mathematical ideas of representing data numerically & manipulating them as per our needs. Today almost all administrative work in organisations has been taken over by computer software.

This field has rapidly evolved into Computer modelling, emails, AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning), Robotics, VR (Virtual Reality) and 3D printing. Today research in almost any field is unimaginable without these tools.

The internet and mobile phones have put the libraries of the world within our reach of our fingers. Effective browsing is one of the requirements of any learner.

Ability to judge the authenticity of the millions of pages of data available is also an expertise.

End of paper & pencil computation

Many software programs have been developed for solving any mathematical problem or equation. Today, almost no researcher uses paper & pencil for computations even for solving differential equations.

This should also change the focus of math education at the undergraduate levels. But change being very difficult to implement, we are still at the stage of focusing on various ways of computations.

In the subsequent chapters we will study the role of math in various subject areas.