How math has inspired me

1. As a child I'd get my dad to write out math problems for me to solve. Even when we were out we'd be at Sunday service and I'd get him to write a list of multiplication, addition and subtraction problems for me to do for fun. I loved it. I now understand that this thrill and enjoyment that I got out of maths then and I still do now is because simply if two plus two equals four then this is an indisputable fact and we can use mathematical reasoning to find other concrete facts on maths.

And then as you're learning more maths and you discover around the beautiful structures in maths and the techniques and tools tied to your mathematical toolbox. Then as you tackle more complicated sophisticated problems in maths you can get a real thrill out of finding the most elegant solution and the pathway to the right solution. If the math checks out then just as two plus two equals four you've uncovered an indisputable truth. Math is so powerful in this way we can draw very strong conclusions about the mysteries of the world around us no matter how complex a problem.

2. I started trying to solve problems to kind of do research. One in particular was thinking about Fermat's Last Theorem. I got a book out of the public library by E.T. Bell called The Last Problem, and I was just hooked. Ironically, this passion for solving problems was probably because I had a rather weak teacher, and it meant I had a lot of spare time, and the problems in class weren't very challenging. As I got older, the teaching was much, much better, and I had to spend a lot more time on classwork, so I didn't have so much time to do the research.

3. When my father taught me geometry i started to like math even more. Before that I would say I was curious about almost everything but didn't have necessarily a particular interest in mathematics. But when I encountered the idea of proofs for the first time and this really sparked my interest.

I first was taught about predicate logic and how to formulate in a precise way statements either being true or false and how to deduce in a logical fashion one step at a time. To go from an initial hope or a desire into a concrete formulation of an argument. And I thought that to be a very powerful way of thinking about the world.

And then when presented with Euclidean geometry you start with axioms and deduce in a very careful measured way these conclusions which could sometimes sound a little counterintuitive and get these beautiful constructions in this case in geometry.

Now I’m somewhat removed from my initial encounters with proofs, but I really still have that same spark within me driving me forward.

4. My own personal way of understanding physics was always through its mathematical models. And I still find it fascinating how in this way mathematical theorems can tell you something about the real world.

However, at some point I realized that some of the maths I needed to solve a problem in physics didn't actually exist yet. But I really wanted to solve the problem, and the way to do that was to go and develop a piece of maths. However, then that kept happening again and again, and so I naturally worked more and more on the side of pure mathematics.

5. This is a bit of a special experience. I remember there was one night when I was coming back home from work, and it was really late, and I was quite stressed that night. I got home, I was really stressed, I was about to cry, and I was reading some math paper after work, like as a habit.

That evening, I remember that all the papers were on the table. I saw one paper and I saw one question. At that moment, I was thinking, "Oh, I know how to do that question," and it actually pulled me out of the emotion. I stopped crying, stopped being emotional, and I went through that question and worked on it for like one or two hours. It's not like it was a super crazy question, but it really felt so important to me. That's something I really, really like.

6. When I was learning physics from my father, we did simple harmonic motion, and that consisted of quite a detailed description of oscillating pendulums, things like that.

Then we went into mathematics to do the same thing, and he wrote down the equation F = ma, explained in real time what F was, and that was it. From that, you could describe everything there was to do with how a pendulum oscillated.

I was struck by the beauty of that and the conciseness of it. At that point, I thought it was amazing that mathematics could be used in such a concise way to describe something that took pages when we did it in physics. And that's when I decided that mathematics was something I wanted to pursue.