I should have known all along that I was destined to be a star math student. After all, my father and I had re-invented hide-and-seek, with a mathematical flare, when I was in the second grade; I’d hide, and when he found me, I was tasked with solving a square root problem. Yet as I embarked on the start of my freshman year of high school enrolled in Algebra II, I had little interest in the pages of numbers that sprawled out in front of me. By that point I had demonstrated a somewhat augmented ability in the area of mathematics, prompting me to advance two years above my grade level, yet unsurprisingly, I had not experienced any premonition concerning the path this talent would follow in life. This all changed, quite possibly, when I slipped into my seat on the first day of Calculus.
At the inception of my eleventh grade year, the tables turned with the wind when I met my Calculus teacher for third period: Mr. Barry Kreisa. With witty nicknames for multifarious processes and clever puns to break the foggy atmosphere of Monday mornings, this instructor was able to quickly captivate my wandering mind and rear me into the derivatives and integrals of basic Calculus. With my high marks, I had become a member of Mu Alpha Theta, but it was not until Mr. Kreisa’s class that I felt compelled to participate in contests such as the Virginia Math League and the National Math Exam (this year I was even driven to a tipping score of 101.5!). Over time, the intertwining mechanisms of related rates and volume equations I could use to find solutions to everyday problems expanded into much more: a world of connection. With Mr. Kreisa’s daily references to his prior negligence to use math in critical situations, such as filling water pillows and attempting to carry them through a house without the knowledge of work equations, I pondered how my experience in my desk with my freshly sharpened pencils in the front of the classroom could really seep into my routine endeavors. I could no longer sit through Physics lessons or even Biology without invoking questions about the mathematical “weaponry” which flows through life. With my passion for environmental science I discovered a new connection between mathematics and my personal reverence for the natural world: the Divine Proportion. Those things which I cherish, phenomena that occur seemingly randomly in the world, have actually been constructed through mathematical principles, ensuring an impressive, shapely balance across the earth – within molecules, cells, shells, and simple grains of sand on the beach.
The commonplace matters we encompass in our daily lives actually signify much more; the world incorporates mathematics in its very building blocks, and that is why it has come to captivate me since those high school days. Strangely enough, I was only able to realize this conclusion after spending countless hours in Calculus class, my ears receptive to tales of failures, flaws, and victories, shedding light on the true liveliness of mathematics.