An open letter to mathematics

Oh hey, Math.

Listen.

You and I. We go back.

When all the other kids said, "Factoring polynomials? Who cares?" I said, "I CARE I CARE I CARE!"

When all the other kids said, "Trigonometric identities? Nobody will ever use these." I said, "I WILL I WILL I DO USE THEM ALL THE TIME" and every time I cut a corner I use the word hypotenuse as a verb.

When all the other kids said, "Math sucks" I said, "DEAR MATH I LOVE YOU" and then spent my Friday nights doing every problem in the book. Every problem twice. In the book of additional problems.

While Barbie said "Math is hard, let's go shopping!" I said, "Math is fun! Let's start a math club!" and then I titled myself the Minister of Algebra.

But, sugar pants, you've got some explaining to do. ME 303 (Advanced Calculus for Engineers) has ruined everything. This isn't useful. This isn't fun. This isn't satisfying. It's painstaking. It's lame. It's easy but takes so much time. It's a hassle. It's approximate. I HATE approximations. I HATE numerical methods. Finite elements and infinite limits are for people who smell.

I hate you, Robin and Neumann, especially because your names are both not phonetically related to their pronunciation. I hate you, Sturm and Louiville, even though Sturm makes me think of Sturm and Drang which makes me think of Durmstrang which makes me think of Harry Potter which is a good thing but in the end I'm still proving orthogonality so it's not a fun day after all. Crank-Nicolson? Dirichlet? Fourrier? Fuck all y'all.

AND YOU, TAYLOR. The others are annoying but you are DISAPPOINTING. Everybody thinks your series is the greatest. But you have let me down. I almost named my unborn (and unconceived) child after you.

ME 303 is the final math course on my degree requirements. I thought I'd be sad when it all came to an end. I thought math, that you and I would have a tearful goodbye. I thought we'd wave to each other as we drove away, promising to write, and crying ourselves to sleep every night for a month. I thought we might carve our names into a tree and pinky-swear to meet here, at this exact spot, in 10 years and that if we both still happen to be single, we'd get fly to Vegas and get married and be happy forever. That's what I thought. But I guess I thought wrong.

So what I'm saying, math, is that you really better get your head in the game because Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics are some pretty sexy courses. I'm packing it up and switching teams if you don't watch out. You think I'm kidding, but I am not.

GET IT TOGETHER.

Sincerely,
-lfar