The servant of a powerful ruler (Archimedes, Al-Khwarizmi). The bureaucrat (the scribe who wrote Plimpton 322). The academic (Euclid). The merchant’s son (Fibonacci).
What is the key role in society of the modern mathematician? Silicon Valley techno-wizard? Wall Street quant? College gatekeeper?
Math can be applied to anything. Most people who are interested in math and specialize in it become mathematicians, math teachers, computer analyst and actuaries. I believe anyone can be a mathematician. In this day and age you cant possibly function without knowing a little math. We use math in our daily life. The only difference is to the degree to what we expand and advanced these mathematical skills. Some people may stop at algebra, others at trignometry and some may have knowledge of Calculus and advanced mathematics. The modern mathematician can be anyone.
I agree when Jennifer says that math can be applied to anything, and it is everyday. Finance and accoutning incorporate mathematics in everything they do. While these businessmen do not go as indepth as their mathematician counterparts, it is an integral part of their work. The math of probability is incorporated into Statistics, when we go shopping we use basic math, when we plan out our loans and futures we also use math. In everything we do whether on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis, we use math. The modern mathematician proves theories so that staticians, accountants, and finance people can out it into use in their own profession. Without math our societies could not function.
I think in the modern world, math is very important. Speaking from a business student’s point of view, numbers are something people think about everyday. Numbers and trends dominate wall street and a simple change in numbers can affect a person’s financials tremendously. As an accounting major, I know that math is constantly applied in various areas, whether in determining taxes, the present values of bonds and stock, or how much life insurance should cost for specific individuals. In our school, math is incorporated into many of the most popular majors, such as Accounting, Finance, and Actuarial Science, which will then be carried forward onto our jobs. Furthermore, unlike languages, math is not something that is used only in certain countries. Whether you travel to across the oceans or through the states, the understanding of basic calculations remain the same. As I once read in a book, math is the universal language.
As humans advance through time , the role of mathematics in our lives is also increasing. Mathematics is the foundation of science, architecture, business, economics, and many other subjects. It virtually a part in every area of our lives. On the most basic level, you need math in order to be able to understand how to count money , objects or even tell time. Without math, you couldn’t figure out the distance from one place to another or the time it would take to get there. On a grander scale, we would know little to nothing about our world without math.Recent developments in theoretical computer science, financial mathematics, and derivative pricing are also examples of important emerging applications through mathematics. Mathematics now plays such a central role in modern culture, it is universal like someone said before it also continues to help us solve problems and be useful in many sectors of our lives.
I think that anybody who had learned mathematics through his/her life are important in the society. As a Professor once said. Most of the Math is already been discovered and that is why we can enjoy of the beauty of some much advanced technology. I think the key role of a modern mathematician today is to constantly manipulate algorithms to create new things that will benefit a person, a company , a community and the entire world.
In my opinion, mathematics is one of the most important sciences in the world. If we looked around, we might notice that everything is based on math. Even if we check the tree leaf we may find out that it has a lot of complicated geometrical lines and angles. Math can help people to think broadly. For many years mathematicians played a significant role in the society. They helped us to find the right solutions, analyze, solve different problems, etc. Moreover, without mathematical knowledges all other sciences could become useless. Especially today, when the world has so many accountants, managers, financiers, banks workers, programmers and so on. Even a person who prefers humanities should know the basis of math such as addition, multiplication, subtraction and devision. So that is why the key role of mathematicians and math in general have spread all over the world.
In my opinion, it is almost impossible to assign a particular social role of a mathematician in modern society since there are many specializations in the math field. A mathematician can be called a financial quantitative analysis if he or she is concerned with investment management, risk management, and derivatives pricing; a mathematician can be named a teacher or a professor if she or he works in college, university, or school; a mathematician can be an actuary if he or she works for the insurance firm and is analyzing statistics to calculate different kinds of probabilities, and so on. In other words, a mathematician can use his or her knowledge in almost every professional sphere and in every day life from planning a family budget to calculating the monthly mortgage payment. So, we can not assign a social role to a mathematician liked it used to be before the division of mathematics into specializations because it is impossible to illuminate math from a persons life in modern society.
Mathematics can be found everywhere we look , from art and architecture to science and energy. Even in Hollywood? It was fascinating to watch the TED conference lecture with Kevin Slavin on ” how algorithms shape our world”. I never would have thought data scientists are working in Hollywood to determine the probability of having a blockbuster movie before it is even made. The physics of culture. The future of math looks promising.
Nowadays Math has expanded to a point where everybody uses it and applies it to their daily routine. Any jobs now require basic maths to perform the duties. With the advancement of technology, if you cant do basic math, you’re pretty much “illiterate” due to the act that it is used in many areas. Mathematicians do work at wall street, accountants, economics, actuarial science and even for the FBI.
I believe the task of mathematicians is to expand and/or reflect on a body of information and systems which helps us relate to the world in some way. The information and systems being number, form, algebra, methods, etc. It is considered by many to be more pragmatic and practical than literature, but both bodies have their parallels and I certainly wouldn’t want to live without either.
I always wondered what mordern mathematicians do. The closet I can think of is engineering. Helping advance technology and solving problems that push the limits of certain things by calculations. Or accountants and financial areas. Think of math, think of numbers, and numbers refer to money.