The Language Of Math

Why is it that two people speaking the same language cannot understand one another?

Perhaps words go only as far as a person's understanding allows.

What is interesting about the language of math is that the better you know math, the easier it is to communicate with other math fluent people.

Math conveys the specifics of ideas and concepts that are only revealed when you understand the math.

Thus, there are limits to what the math would reveal to the mind, just as there are limits to any person's understanding, concept and experience when it comes to understanding the messaging words of another person.

If I were to tell you about something I experienced, if you haven't experienced something similar, my words may fail in helping you understand my experience.

Try explaining what a ball is to someone who has never seen a ball.

Words may be able to describe the shape, how it reacts to being pushed on a smooth surface.

Words may even compare a ball to something else, like the shape of an eye's pupil.

But something round isn't necessarily spherical.

And if your hearer doesn't know what the term “spherical” means, that word fails to convey any understanding.

Words do fail sometimes in properly conveying concepts, ideas, experiences, realities and the truth into the mind of another human being.

Truth isn't relegated only to the learned and sophisticated.

Quite the contrary sometimes.

With the language of math, rules are set in place to derive a solution.

Yet not all mathematical problems have been solved, not all equations have a resolving solution; some have “infinity” as an answer, and this answer troubles those who speak and think in mathematical terms.

But just as math opens up another world of understanding and perception to people, it is by accepting and believing the rudiments and principles of math which allows for communication.

However, knowing the rules does not equate to understanding or solving all problems.

You may be proficient in any spoken language, but that doesn't mean you understand everything you read written in your native language.

Where, then, does understanding come from?

Experiencing what a ball is would assist in conveying the language describing a ball.

In fact, no explanatory words would be necessary if you were to simply hand a ball to someone.

Such is the way of understanding; it isn't so much found as in knowing how to solve a mathematical problem.


Understanding is something handed to you; a gift... and sadly, not everyone is gifted understanding.