Mathematics

So for the math lovers, what was it that made you start liking math and when did you realize you had a passion for it?

I got into the math olympiads and won a shitty bronze medal in my first and last year. Never looked back.

Most people only like math because of the ego boost it gives them.

We're you naturally gifted at math or did you have to really work at it?

I will have to clear up the fact that the medal I won was national, hence shitty.
I was always an idiot, just not the sort of idiot that gives up on things.
The basics of olympiads level combinatory, geometry, algebra and number theory were really easy, and most problems at the national were somewhat difficult.
I'm smart but the difference between 'gifted' and 'intelligent' is massive. And I think few people on Veeky Forums recognize this.

>t. biologist

Why do you say that? I'd say that's more engineering majors than biology.

I always found interesting problems fun. It is fun to discover things. I originally preferred physics problems but math gives you more freedom if you want to discover things with only paper, a pen, and your wit. And maybe a computer.

I will say that I do math mainly to amuse myself, but the only reason I publish solutions for minor challenge problems (on websites like brilliant or youtube channels like BLACKEDpenredpen) is for the ego boost.

When I write a specially elegant solution I even constantly refresh it to see how many new upvotes I got. It is like cocaine.

Not sure when I started liking it, but when I started making formals to determine how many strokes it took me to cum and the various coefficients I knew I had a passion for it.

I chose it as a major because I was good at it and wanted to see how deep the rabbit hole went. Didn't truly fall in love with it until second year of undergrad when things started getting serious

That's not really what I meant as far as ego boost, I was mostly talking about people who get A's in classes like cal 2 or DE cause they simply just memorized shit and go and tell people that they love math .

>aggydaggy image

...

Or perhaps they are just good at manipulating 3D objects in their heads. Only an IQ test can say for sure.

>shitty elementary/middle school teacher who only taught the real world applications of math, became a humanist
>proof-heavy, abstract-thinking high school teachers who taught math while explaining the historical context and development of every subject
>high school physics are cool
>'hey, math looks a lot like philosophy sometimes'
>math olympiads
>learning math by myself, discover math is full of surprises and unexpected things, discover there's not an unique way of solving a problem and that most of the theories are fucking ass pulls I mean how cool is that

I love how theoretical math is, and how independent from any other stuff in the world but your own mind it is. If it wasn't for math, I'd be majoring in philosophy or something history/politics related. I don't give a fuck about biology, sociology, chemistry, or any other subject where my work is heavily conditioned on the environment I'm working on. Theoretical physics are cool though.

>tl;dr math is autistic and I have autism

I liked it because it was pretty much the only thing that I found intellectually challenging. I found I had a passion for it when I started proof-based math.

Unironically linear algebra

I wouldn't say I have a passion for math but doing calculus in high school I realized you could teach yourself most if not all math shit so it really appeals to me

not sure. nothing but that and sex makes me happy. i just spend my time fucking and reading math books.

i didnt think grad school would be this.

That's exactly how I imagine grad school is going to be

When I was 14 years old and I was interested in calculus, physics, cryptography, and solving difficult problems.

Holy shit man. I'm some random dude tripping balls on acid and this is the first time I browse the science board, but I'm very glad your post is where my journey led me. I laughed my ass off thoroughly, cheers for that.

I didn't take school seriously and mostly skipped classes and did only the bare minimum to pass/graduate. When I actually bothered trying, I always did fine. I recall in one class the teacher accused me of cheating because I'd done a worksheet in just a few minutes and did most of it in my head without writing anything down. She refused to believe I finished in 5 minutes when it took everyone else the entire class period, especially since I slept through class or didn't show up most times. I failed geometry tests/assignments because I didn't show my work and draw out the shapes. These kind of incidents killed my interest in mathematics and I stopped caring altogether. This isnt evidence of any particular talent, I never took advanced classes.

It was the first year of college that I began to realize I liked math. I hated the mandatory English and Sociology courses. I hated writting papers and everything about those classes bored me, but I found myself always looking forward to math lectures. I'd gotten into programming around the same time and reading about how computers worked also made me appreciate mathematics. Unfortunately it was about this time I realized the massive gaps in my maths education. I find it incredibly interesting but it remains to be seen if I have any talent for it, or even the intelligence to make it.

Same here.
Had a sort of "Wait, we can -build more math-?" realization in that class that made it something more than a tool.

Maths was one of my least favourite subjects back in high school, thought I was very good at it. Mathematics seemed to me the process of memorizing algorithms to solve problems, solving a problem just to grab the next one which seemed dull to me. While preparing for my finals I came across an opinion that college Maths differs from HS one greatly (thanks Veeky Forums). I did some research on modern maths and grabbed an entry level Algebra textbook (Aluffi's because of category theory). This was the turning point

I was gifted from birth
As soon as i got a hold of a pencil at the age of 2 I wrote down
[math]\mathbb{Z}/(pq)\mathbb{Z} \widetilde{ = } \mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}\times\mathbb{Z}/q\mathbb{Z}[/math]
at the time i did not have the vocabulary say chinese remainder theorem.
But it was there and my big throbbing talent had slathered it all over.

>I'm smart but the difference between 'gifted' and 'intelligent' is massive. And I think few people on Veeky Forums recognize this.
Realest post I've seen on Veeky Forums in ten years.

I always liked math but more like a problem solving tool than a separate field of study. Then I had my first experience with mathematical rigor when I read Spivak's Calculus and ended up diving down the rabbit hole.

>had a passion
Ahh to be young and innocent

When I actually didn't have a shitty teacher and realized it's the most important subject we have.

What did he mean by this Veeky Forums?

>most important
>not science
that's just an opinion, scientifically speaking, science is the most important

You don't need to know CRT to prove it, at least for groups

Science isn't a subject (retard), it's a methodology.

>science
>not a subject
>implying

Great misuse of the quoting function but you're still wrong.

The scientific method is just empiricism which is just a subset of philosophy. Pure logic dominates the empirical, this materialistic coil we find ourselves in is nothing compared to the true pure platonic forms of existence.
"Science" is not the most important.

not true, science is the most important

The results in science can't even be accurately described without math. Also scientists are usually brainlets who can't understand the pure form of information and logic that transcends this universe.
The laws of physics could have been completely different, with different apps and combinations etc. But mathematics is the same in all universes and existence.

I meant atoms not apps

Phoneposting retard.

lol u get a B in those classes and are bitter or something?

Triggered physics brainlet

when i started teaching myself and realized i wasnt shit at it

When I started watching BLACKED.com, I don’t know what it was exactly but soon as I did the calculations in my head I decided I wanted to be a math star, and so I did

I was always decent at math, but my UG school did mostly analysis which was always boring to me. I was actually in art school at the time. As I was about to graduate, I picked up Artin's algebra, and some basic stuff in group theory (Sylow, classification of plane symmetry groups) got me hooked, esp wrt connection between geometry, algebra, and number. I read math every day for years after that, and still do when I have time.

Infinite series in general is what first got me to realize the beauty of mathematics.

[math] \displaystyle{\sum_{k = 1}^{\infty} a_k} [/math]

A good Linear Algebra professor can turn your world upside down. I'd say that Linear Algebra is one of the first classes where you might do 'real mathematics', assuming before you've only had Calc 1-3, and ODE/PDE.

well gcd(p,q) better be 1 then

what topics in math would you recommend to someone who finds mathematics overly autistic and myopic

inb4 fuzzy logic

No I actually got A's in both which is really nothing to brag about, but I'm not over here telling people how much I love math cause of it.

I just started think of math like puzzle solving games. They have rules, methods, boundaries, etc.

Once I made the challenge fun, I went from a C in precal to straight As in calc 1 2 3 and ODE

Because Math is the highest paying talent of mine and I fucking hate writing too much like labs and shitty essays on humanities (excluding Philosophy and Rhetoric).
And I do not think I have any other talent than Math and Rhetoric, where the former is the highest paying one so I don't want to be a leech to my parents or the government.

How do I learn math if I can't math past adding and multiplying with my fingers?

Either you're underage or have Dyscalculia.

Do research on the latter and maybe go to a good Psychologist or something, I don't know who diagnoses Dyscalculia.

kek

who here /good at math but indifferent/?

it's not that hard for me to motivate myself to work calculus equations for a couple hours for homework or to study. i don't enjoy it but since i understand the material pretty quickly i just find it tedious.

Take a proof based class like abstract algebra or real analysis.

nah i'll just go into engineering

Brainlet. Taking the wrong material then claiming its too easy. You belong in /humanities not /sci.

the cool thing is i don't really care what a random shitposter thinks

The cool thing is engineers still have to prove things in their classes, they're just not taught how to

Cool thing is that you dumb.

I'm not entirely sure, but I've loved it and wanted to be a mathematician since grade school.

Because nothing is more comfy than sitting at your desk, on a snowy morning, practicing out of a textbook

Also, when I got into the topology of my cum I thought it would be reasonable to go for a graduate program

>tfw fascinated by quantum mechanics
>can't math

>learning math by myself, discover math is full of surprises and unexpected things, discover there's not an unique way of solving a problem and that most of the theories are fucking ass pulls I mean how cool is that

>I don't give a fuck about biology, sociology, chemistry, or any other subject where my work is heavily conditioned on the environment I'm working on.

I like that way of thinking, good answer. I wish you well in future endeavors