Oct 16, 2026 · 7 min · 7 segments
Everyone hates math, right? Wrong! I like math. Mathematicians like math, presumably. Physicists like math, usually. People who hate math just don't understand it. But like that weird ethnic food…
Math is how our phones work, how airplanes fly, how social media knows who you're gonna tag in a photo before you do.
Math can tell us how disease spreads, who is most likely to win an election, or the odds of winning at casino games.
It is the language of the universe itself, describing how all objects move from tiny atoms to entire galaxies.
Math governs everything from science to economics, so it is not an overstatement when we say that math is everywhere.
But in another more tangible sense, math is also nowhere, in that it isn't a concrete physical object like you or your shoe or your desk.
Objects in the night sky obey mathematical laws of motion that exist whether we write them down or not, which means that mathematical truths have their own existence independent of humans and our symbols.
The fact that one plus one equals two does not rely on two people each putting an apple into a basket and then agreeing that the result is two apples.
The equation that represents this action was true before any humans were even born, and it will be true long after they all die.
Math is how our phones work, how airplanes fly, how social media knows who you're gonna tag in a photo before you do.
Math can tell us how disease spreads, who is most likely to win an election, or the odds of winning at casino games.
It is the language of the universe itself, describing how all objects move from tiny atoms to entire galaxies.
Math governs everything from science to economics, so it is not an overstatement when we say that math is everywhere.
But in another more tangible sense, math is also nowhere, in that it isn't a concrete physical object like you or your shoe or your desk.
Objects in the night sky obey mathematical laws of motion that exist whether we write them down or not, which means that mathematical truths have their own existence independent of humans and our symbols.
The fact that one plus one equals two does not rely on two people each putting an apple into a basket and then agreeing that the result is two apples.
The equation that represents this action was true before any humans were even born, and it will be true long after they all die.
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