Mathematics

The scene in the image above is from The Big Bang Theory S04E12, the engineer and astronaut, Howard Wolowitz, is testing their newly developed mobile app “The Lenwoloppali Differential Equation Scanner”.

The app features hand-writing recognition, allowing the users to take a picture of a written differential equation to get its name. As said in the show, as many as “twenty people from the university signed up for a private beta”.

Even though Mathematical research is only for a small group of people, Mathematics is everywhere. From Engineering to Computer Science, from Nature Science to Sociology, new theories cannot stand without data analysis or a mathematical modeling with proof.

I attended college for B.S. and graduate school for PhD both majored in Mathematics. With 10 years of study, to me, Math is not about numbers or equations, it is about how we quantify real world phenomena and build up a model to solve a problem, or to make predictions. Models can be created from linear, polynomial functions, differential equations, or even graphs and topological structures. As phenomena and problems evolve, we modify the previous models developed to fit the new requirements, as well as the methodologies around the models. That keeps leading to countless new studies in Mathematical research.