What Made Us Love Math

It's never too late to love. We realized that upon launching this sub-domain since 2022, everything there is about it and more. Granted, yes I used to hate the subject much like anyone and their family member(s). Cool, so what changed and how did this love come through? This was the reason I came to love it:



That's right: Coding, or more generally computer programming, was the main reason. I believe that coding ought to be taught as a prerequisite to math, which for me, would mean getting students to problem solve with code, thus translating such statements/problems using hand-written equations can be interpreted easily (my personal opinion/suggestion). Anyway, this love didn't happen with me until I was 22—I'm currently in my mid-30s—but all that confused me is starting to make sense. Better yet, in today's standard, if it can be written in code, I'll know what's being expressed and what is being stated/calculated. I owe it all to coding and I couldn't be more thankful. Now, yes, some mathematical disciplines are insane and difficult, but personally, that wouldn't stop me from learning and wanting to know. This may mean spending years thinking about the problem(s) only to understand it, but besides writing for this website and working, what else is there for me to do? Party, getting drunk and smoke? No, thanks, I prefer doing math...and write code, in addition.

Full disclosure: I've been an introvert my entire life, way before it was considered "cool" by today's standards; In fact, my own father happened to be one as well. I like the ability to create, solve and learn the inner workings of something. An example would be television—the way I look at it is, how are people featured on it and how is the video being projected? That interest led me into video production and learning how to ingest footage on computer. Mind you, this was back in 2001-2002, so online video was still a niche thing back then. Anyway, learning the intricacies, 'how it's made,' and the process in how it all comes together is something I always found to be fun. Despite having HTML experience as early as 2004, I didn't fully dive into the software development side—coding—until 2009. That time, I was learning Java and C, and today, I've been on and off coding ever since. Why? That's for another blog post.

As I taught myself writing code, the keywords, the mathematical operators commonly used and its overall structure, it felt like writing a math statement/problem. The next time I read or ran through a math book, namely the one I had to get for classes I took in college, it started to make sense to me. Like any discipline, I needed more and more practice, though things took a while to click with me (I still had video production in my career radar that time). How was I during my math classes? Average. I wasn't the best student there was, as it all came down to the teaching style, examples and explanation. Believe it or not, I had a Statistics professor who gets mad whenever someone asks her a question! Seriously! It wasn't a pleasant experience and had to drop the class despite the fact that it was too late anyway.

Not to say people who teach do a poor job explaining or teaching, but there are more qualified teachers and professors who are cut out to teach this amazing subject. I know I likely can't do a good job, though I can try, but there's a difference between those passionate about teaching and those doing something for financial stability. The latter often doesn't care too much about helping, as sad as that seems but let's digress. The quality of teaching can have an impact, and I thought to myself if I could teach myself Math, then I may as well do so. (My highest math knowledge currently is Trigonometry/Pre-Calculus.)

Teaching oneself on math sounds rigorous compared to teach themselves coding. The problem is my personal circle are mostly those pursuing a career in entertainment while some are video game streamers. I don't know anyone, personally, who's into Mathematics, let alone computer programming so this website hopes to connect with those who are into the same thing. Only one who's curious and doesn't mind learning math is my girlfriend which is great, thus I'd like to take this opportunity to expand my network/circle, especially those in higher-level mathematics.

Currently, Logic and Category Theory are where I'm doing research and learning more about. I'm not looking to master every mathematical discipline there is, though that would be awesome and cool, but like programming languages, there are some that click and make more sense than others. For instance, as beautiful a subject such as Geology and Hydrology are, I wouldn't know a thing about the math used there (though I'm sure they use a lot of Calculus). Nevertheless, my personal goal is to use this website to share, be curious, be excited about this form of science and share it with anyone and everyone who visits this website. If that happens to be you, I thank you so much!

What do I plan to do with all this math knowledge? If some company, big or small, thinks my skills are worth paying for and inviting me to help them out with, I'm happy to do so and can be bought. Otherwise, I'm always here and will be here hanging out and talking about everything mathematics, in addition to computer science (mainly coding). Again, an early thank you to those sticking around and joining me in this humble journey!

Despite what anyone says, and being that I'm back to doing coding again, I feel happier as I am with math (both go and compliment together well). What happened with video production? I can go more in detail but I find more joy in coding and solving problems, let alone writing via typing or handwriting. Video is fun, don't get me wrong, but to learn and understand something that I once disliked makes it a better life option for me. I honestly don't see myself doing anything else.

Did you love Math ever since? What is it about Math you love and enjoy? Who and what encouraged you to love Math? Let's talk about it on the comments section below!

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he managed a personal blog made back in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming (software development), Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, playing old video/DOS games, digital video archiving, and listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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