Shameless vanity post for math lovers and haters!! R. brain vs. L. brain

[kixot]

I'm 27, I've been slacking in classes at FAU and dream of working in mathematics, though computer science wouldn't make me feel like much of a failure.

I've always considered myself a poet by purpose and an amateur musician by desire and have immense passion for writing poetry and enchantment with constructing mathematical proofs and solving gruesome equations.

The questions is, does anyone think there is really a separation between "left brains" and "right brains"?

When I study moderen algebra it seems like nothing more than a formalized type of poetry and I have no problem enjoying both?

Does anyone else suspect that this right brain left brain this is hogwash? Kind of like how anybody could be ambidextrous is taught right from an early age?

[Girlfriday]

1. This mathematically challenged gal has one question......

must you gloat? :)

[kixot]

2. I've heard thi before.

I knew a girl who had her latin declinations down like second nature but couldn't get the basics of algrebra. I just couldn't get where the mental block was happening, they seem to be variances of logic in the same pattern of thought.

[Girlfriday]

5. Seriously,

I do think some people are just gifted like you, my daughter for one. An economics major, financial analyst now and writes prose and poetry like a pro. Go figure :shrug:

[Swede]

3. I can remembe shit I read 25 years ago and bang my head

trying to get my head around Boolean math.

[WindRavenX]

4. For me, math is weird

I LOVE playing around with numbers and formulas relating to physics and astrophysics,yet when I have to do boring algebra (such a polynomial factoring), I completely tune out.
Right now, I'm in calculus one and I LOVE it. There isn't an overload of stupid, winded formulas- you actually learn things from what the answers tell you.
I just hate being graded on them...
But basically, I like numbers.
(this is coming from an English and Biology major)

[baby_bear]

6. How are you with spatial relations?

As a female scientist with some modest math skills, I adore algebra but shrink from geometrical relationships. I had to take an engineering geology class in grad school and was helpless when the prof made us draw dips and strikes on paper, assuming certain cuts into the formation. I could never do the geometrical abstracts on IQ tests. Trig makes me hide in a closet. Yet algebra is something I enjoy, as are languages and reading and playing music.

But I am an idiot when it comes to spatial relations.

Right brain/left brain indeed. I am a good example. I'm lucky I can use my left hand to alleviate an itch.

s_m

[Red State Rebel]

7. Aaaarrgghhh

Math = Numbers
English = Letters

When they mix the two, I get a headache.

[Girlfriday]

9. Welcome to DU SaidFred

:hi:

[newyawker99]

13. Hi SaidFred!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Maple]

8. 'All great minds

are androgynous.'

[ant]

10. math IS poetry

Mathematical Poetry - A Small Anthology

I don't think the left brain/right brain thing is hogwash - most people do seem to lean one way or the other - but I do think true genius involves the successful meshing of both. Einstein's leap to relativity, for instance, strikes me as requiring a lot of right brain thinking.

[Speck Tater]

11. I read somewhere that...

... an aweful lot of people who do math for a living do music or art as a hobby and a lot of professional musicians are avid fans of math.

I'm a software engineer with degrees in math and comp sci and I paint and compose music in my spare time. Seems like a perfectly normal balance to me. Play with one side of the brain and work with the other, and be flexible enough to use either side when needed by work or play.

[Philostopher]

12. I've known an awful lot of people

Who were good at 'theoretical' math who hated 'practical' math. By that, I mean people who were good at algebra and trigonometry versus those who were good at geometry and the math involved with physics.

My problem was the reverse -- I always had a problem with abstract mathematical concepts that had no visual or 'real world' counterparts that I could see pictured on a page in my textbook. I was good at geometry and physics, but I had an awful time with the abstracts of algebra and trig. If you could show me a picture, I could usually work it out -- anything else, I had to beat my head on the wall over.

I have excellent auditory and visual memory, so it wasn't that I had difficulties remembering the precepts or formulae -- I just never was good at picturing the necessary 'stuff' in my head for abstract math.

I also was good at reading music, back when I played piano. My brother, who's a whiz at math and actually teaches it now, can play 'by ear,' but he never could read music all that well. I've always been more inclined to wordplay and writing, although he and I do share a sense of humor in many ways. I have, over the years, wondered if the 'playing by ear' versus 'reading music' talents were related to our basic tendencies toward being good at abstract and practical math.

I think it's more complext than simple 'right brain' and 'left brain' stuff. I'm good at poetry -- have been writing it for years -- but I like writing freeverse better than strictly measured stuff (though I can do it -- and have).

[patdem]

14. Music is mathematical..so is poetry far behind?

though I think (IMHO) rhyming poetry is probably more a math problem than the non rhyming poetry??? I do not know????

Anyway...I was an actuarial researcher in my other life ... when living in New England and I am currently a bookkeeper in VA due to lack of home office insurance companies in my home town.

I am left handed, and my mother is also left handed that means that whatever function the 'normal' left brain has mine is handled by the right brain. It is a mirror existance. Being left handed is a VERY strange existance in America. In fact my grandfather who went to a Jesuit School was beaten on his left hand everytime he attempted to use it. Sinister I believe is what being left handed is called???

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

15. math music and poetry are all closely related

The right brain/left brain thing is a pop simplification really. There are different areas of the brain that are responsible for different things, but it's not a neat little pattern like that.

[Guaranteed]

16. I've always been visual

in that when I do math I tend to visualize everything that happens...I began doing it at a very early age, and thus got an early jump in the area, but then tended to average out. Although I can also visualize equations changing on paper. I dunno...I can't figure out the right-left brain thing either. ???
I say just forget it. :)

[Nikia]

17. Probably left brain dominate

I was always good at math and like science. I like things to be organized and for things to make sense. I am not a very visual person although I always drew pictures when solving physics or other math application problems. I had trouble seeing it in my mind unless it was actually on paper. On the other hand, I have been a creative writer from an early age and before and during that a creative at play. I created stories with my toys. My writing can be very emotional. I tend to like to be creative within structure.

[supernova]

18. From an English major who despised Algebra

I enjoy language: poetry, lyrics, all kinds of word games and puzzles. I never had a problem understanding what was required to learn or use language. Not so with Algebra.

My capacity for learning came to a screeching halt in 9th grade. I simply didn't understand Algebra at all. It was all Greek to me! Pardon the pun. But reading the material: theorems, proofs, quadratic equations and the like, looked like an alternate universe of knowledge I had no connection to whatsoever. I tried and tried to understand, but never got more than a D, no matter how hard I studied or how much I thought I understood. :shrug: Felt the same way in 10th Grade for Algebra II. Like a lot of girls, I thought I was stupid with math/scientific concepts.

Enter the breath of fresh air that is Geometry! It all made sense on some basic intuitive level I can't explain. I got that shapes are 3-D, I got that you can have a 180 degree triangle. I got that you can see 180 degrees on a protractor. I got that perfect spheres are 360 degrees. I could built models and work out the geometry to manage and describe them. I got As and Bs. Wow! I must not be so dumb after all! :D

I skipped trig in HS. It wasn't necessary to have for college and I didn't want to take the risk of screwing up my GPA again.

When I got to college I worked up the nerve to try Algebra again. Again Ds. Flashbacks. Ugliness.

Then I tried Astronomy. Once more the universe of symbols made sense! The stars, Yes! They emit light and you can see what they're made of just deciphering the light colors. You can pinpoint a star by triangulating the earth against another known entity. You can see how black holes bend light. And you can work out the physics to tell you so. I got an A in that class, and twenty years later follow astronomy as a hobby.

I often wonder what would have happened had I majored in physics instead of English?

I do think there is something about the confines of algebra that rankles me. I often think laterally, meaning I think of several solutions to one question. Studying language is not confining at all. Unless you are talking about grammar, answers are not limited to simply being right or wrong. But even notions of grammar are pretty fluid. The right grammar (especially English) for any occasion is dictated more by context than school-room formality.

I think my right brain is more developed that my left. But I'm not as bad at it as I once was led to believe I was.

[WHAT]

19. Math is the language of symbols?...

When I took math, my teacher thought something was wrong with me because I would get all the word problems right but mess-up on the formulas. Once I realized that math was just another language, it all clicked into place. Also, I've always had a hard time listening to jazz because I would try to count it and put it into patterns like pop music but the patterns would become too tricky and convoluted. I can really enjoy jazz now if I leave it amorphous and let the sharpness define itself.

?

Geometry vs. algebra...I tend to have a graphic mind and have taken tests where I've gotten all the spatial relationships right and I've preferred geometry to algebra although I can enjoy the sequencing in algebra. I just prefer the immediacy of looking at something from all angles.

I tend to think this may be a gender difference...