The “Unreasonable effectiveness” trope annoys the hell out of me. The only reaso

The “Unreasonable effectiveness” trope annoys the hell out of me. The only reason this ‘magical mathematics’ nonsense perpetuates, and the average person is still afraid of mathematics, is because it’s taught as a superstition.

Math is trivial. 1 = any unitary measure. By the combination of some number of symbols – in the current case 0123456789, we can create positional names. By adding, subtracting units, and by adding and subtracting sets of units (multiplication and division), we can create positional names (numbers) for an unlimited set of positions. we can create names of positions in an unlimited number of directions (dimensions). We can create positions relative to any other position (relative positions). We can create changes in positions of relative positions. producing numbers, sets, and fields, and topographies (many different fields.

So the fact that math is ‘unreasonable’ is rather ridiculous. It’s people who are unreasonable. Math is TRIVIAL. Deduction in multiple dimensions is hard because we are not well suited to it.

I mean, we have 26 letters, and 44 phonemes in the english language. If we were ‘elegant’ we might increase the 26 to 44 letters, so that english was easier to read. but look at what we can say with those 44 phonemes, 26 characters, and 250K words in some including terms, and maybe 200K words that are not archaic.

There are roughly 100,000 word-families in the English language.

A native English speaking person knows between 10,000 (uneducated) to 20,000 (educated) word families.

A person needs to know 8,000-9,000 word families to enjoy reading a book.

A person with a vocabulary size of 2,500 passive word-families and 2,000 active word-families can speak a language fluently.

Of those we can pretty much COMMUNICATE anything, although in wordy prose, with only 300 words.

Now think of how much MORE you can say in language than you can say in mathematics.

Why should it surprise you that running around with a perfectly scalable yardstick that can measure any distance, allows you to measure and compare anything? It shouldn’t. It’s freaking obvious.