What's the Use of Mathematics (1): Mathematics and Rational Spirit

You come to a small town and want to get a haircut. There are two barbershops in the town. They have their own shops. The shops in the street on the left are very beautiful. The barber inside has neat hair and treats people warmly and politely. The store on the right street is very shabby, and the hairdresser's hairstyle inside is also very bad. He is cold and not very enthusiastic about people. If it were you, which barber shop would you choose?

This is a personal preference. Choosing the barber shop on the left pays attention to the decoration, popularity and cleanliness inside, but he doesn't take into account that this barber's hairstyle was cut by another master of a broken barber shop. And how about this barber's workmanship? Just look at another barber's hairstyle.

Rational thinking allows us to find what we need through the surface of things.

Of course, there is no right or wrong in this example. The default is that the essential requirement of haircut is that the hairstyle looks good. Of course, barbershops can have many additional products, such as sea fishing.

If a commodity is cheap and you need it, you will probably buy it. But in the past, when the price was cheap, rational people would calculate and estimate the cost through various channels. If the price is lower than the cost, it is fake or defective, and they will not buy it decisively. Of course, some people still can't stand the repeated bombing of advertisements and propaganda. When something goes well, you can always find a principle or conclusion from behind. If it's a math problem, forget it. If it's market data, you can find the rules from the market data you collect and make products and marketing strategies, which may be a big business.

IBM said decades ago that "only a few computers are enough in the world", and now it has become the laughing stock of the public. IBM was really stupid. In this case, some people may start to laugh at IBM without analysis, not to mention the hype of reporters. However, the computer that IBM said at that time was not a home computer now, but a giant supercomputer that occupied the whole room. Bill Gates also said that "a home computer only needs 640k memory", and now it has become a laughing stock. But I believe that these people must have taken it out of context, and Gates must have said it under certain circumstances.

Every condition and step to solve mathematical problems is reasonable. Every condition makes us pay attention to what he wants to express, and every step of solving the problem makes us think rationally about the solution. After graduation from our school, not many people will study, read and think seriously, let alone take physical exercise. It is possible that some people study after graduation and don't stay in school for a few more years. Examination-oriented education has many disadvantages, but it is not without its merits. If school education is a prison, but she forced you to learn a lot at least in 12 years, is it not worth it that tuition is free at the compulsory education stage? We will never have such an opportunity again.

As far as mathematics is concerned, this thing is not like watching TV dramas and novels. It's calculus, analysis and thinking that really annoys some children. But learn some math, learn some rational thinking, and develop some thinking habits. At least you won't be fooled when you buy things in the future, you will think twice before you do things, and you won't be impulsive. To put it more bluntly, in fact, the thinking of science and liberal arts is different. When encountering an event, science students love to analyze data, while liberal arts students love to comment and be impassioned. Journalists, mostly liberal arts students, always like to express their excitement and talk about social morality. They may not see things rationally and sometimes make mistakes. For example, some rich second generation events are actually not what the news said, and they are biased when they are said. Rumors stop with wise men.

Learning mathematics makes you rational, at least in society, and it is not easy to be cheated.