It happened again, just a few minutes ago. A guy walked up to the table where I was sitting and started looking at one of my pages of calculations. His eyes widened before he let out an f-bomb. “Man, this hurts my head just lookin’ at it! What is this?!” All I could do was smile before I turned the paper around to show him.

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On top was Laguerre’s equation. I was taking its Laplace Transform, which in this case turns the equation into a simpler one. I explained that I was in the process of solving the simpler equation before I could solve the original Laguerre equation, like a stepping stone. Of course, keeping this to a single sheet of paper was difficult.

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He looked at me, then at the papers several times. His open mouth only made me smile more, but I understood that he saw all of this as a work of craftsmanship. In the end, he could only say that he was dizzy before walking off. It is a shame  that he didn’t stick around for a few more minutes. I would’ve loved to have told him that it has the same disorienting effect on me!

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I often make the point that I find math hard, especially when someone makes the false claim that I'm some sort of genius. This dismisses all the time and effort that I have put into it, and it also buys into this popular misconception that math is exclusively for savants. Such a misconception deprives those who do have potential, and I believe that includes just about everyone. Math is wonderful because it is beautiful, useful, and because it is hard!

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On top of that, it isn't like I was doing anything cutting-edge. The landscape of mathematics is unbelievably vast. In this instance, I was doing Ordinary Differential Equations. It’s only a couple of years of study from elementary algebra. In a world governed by things like tensors, stochastic calculus, and Riemann Geometry, I’m still learning the basics.

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Notwithstanding that, I’ll give myself a pat on the head. I’m reminded of how far I’ve come when scenarios like the one I mentioned at the table play out. I’m even more reminded when I help someone with a problem. The most exciting problems that I help with tend to be based on applications, because these seem to inspire guys in here the most. I can think of a recent example.

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I’ll tell you about it next week, though. I’m going to study some multivariable calculus for now, because it looks like I can’t understand Partial Differential Equations without getting more into it.

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