As someone who can’t do the slightest bit of math without double-checking via Google, you might not peg me as someone who loves to read about abstract math theory. And yet it’s one of my favorite subjects to read about. The answer as to why is a bit more complicated than can be so easily summarised in one sentence.
There is something fascinating about math theory.
When all is said and done, math is a man-made concept. Derivatives and theorems are names and concepts that we created to make sense of the world. Numbers make the unknown comprehensible. Graphs put relationships and patterns into a different 2D or 3D framework so that we can understand them. There is nothing more satisfying than understanding that which is confusing to us at first. But reading about math theory, particularly that which is abstract and attempts to explain concepts like infinity, reminds us that for many questions, there aren’t any direct answers.
No. In fact, there are just more questions. Which is the second reason I love reading about mathematics.
It is because these concepts are confusing that they become all the more interesting. In the same way that books can become boring if the hero triumphs every time, so too can math and science if the answers are easy to find. Reading a book about how to determine the angle of a triangle would be boring because we already have the answer to that particular problem within the framework of Euclidean geometry. Take out that framework though, and it becomes infinitely more interesting.
Ask questions about how there are different levels of infinity, how there are versions of ‘infinity’ that smaller than others — and it opens up a completely different world of thought. When there are no complete answers, the world suddenly seems more open to adventure and investigation. There aren’t any limits when it comes to creating a theory or experimenting on numbers that have been so thoroughly experimented on that they become moot. Which leads into the third reason why I love reading about abstract math.