Everything is Mathematics

So far this website (or blog, if you will) has been a bit of trial and error. And by trying I mean that literally. The articles do not have a clear direction or overarching theme. An article about websites and an article about podcasts and in between some personal reflections on the website itself and where it may or may not be going.

The first article was a newsletter I sent out in November 2020. Almost 2 years ago now. So I can say with reasonable certainty that I haven’t been very productive here. That had its reasons, by the way. The corona pandemic is 1. In addition to all kinds of private reasons and a busy family and work life.

In my article about the start of Rockets are cool, I wrote that 83% of all sites online are inactive. Now I have tried to find out when a site is labeled as inactive, but it is not really clear. In any case, I suspect that Rockets are cool does not (yet) fall under this rule because an update / new article is published with some regularity.

Still, I’ve been pondering and brooding lately with what exactly I want with this site. If I want anything at all with this site. Thoughts that actually coincide with a fantasy that I’ve been brooding on for some time and that needs some explanation.

Math

Back to basic

The fact is, I keep bumping into math every time I want to learn more about…

• Machine Learning → Math
• Data Science/Analysis → Math
• Game Development → Math
• Trading → Math
• Sports betting → Math
• Search algorithms → Math

What I realized (and what most people may already know) is that Mathematics is pretty much the cradle of everything in life and especially of what I find interesting or want to learn. (Even other beta subjects like Physics, Chemistry, and Biology are based on math.)

So math. No subject is as appealing. You could say either you love it or you hate it. The love of Mathematics knows no (fifty) shades of gray. It’s black or white. (A topic that in itself deserves its own article and which I may write later.)

As I touched on briefly in my article on Learning how to handle data, I only have Secondary School knowledge of Mathematics, most of which is long gone. And that lack now breaks me down in wanting to learn the list of subjects in which I would like to delve into.

In other words, there is nothing for it but to first delve and dive into math. It reminds me of a famous quote by writer Stephen King:

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.

Stephen King

This also applies to Mathematics. “If you want to be good at… ¹Name a theme here: Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Game Development, Data Science, Computer Science, etc. you first have to get good at Mathematics. There is no shortcut.”

It’s not a must

A long cherished dream….

Now that I read the above paragraph I realize that it sounds like I’m concluding that Mathematics is a must. A bump in the road that you cannot ignore. That is not the case. I am very happy that I came to this conclusion because I now have a valid reason to study math. I have been fascinated by it for a long time, but I also fall into the category: I find it scary. (Something for a later article.)

To complete the circle with the beginning of this article in which I wrote whether I do not know this website has a right to exist, I can now clearly state that I am going in a new direction with this website. I’m going to learn math and you can follow me and maybe learn something from it yourself.

And by math, I mean all of math. Not just the High School math that we all know. I mean the Mathematics that so many are so passionate about and the reason why some people love Mathematics so much.