I know I’m replying late but this topic touched a nerve. I wasn’t particular bad at math but I’ve always found it hard and un-enjoyable and dry. I thought that people disliking math was a universal truth until I went to university and met my colleagues “nerds”. I saw how they spoke about math with passion and I was baffled. This actually made me depressed because I do like science and scientific things but not being able to enjoy and understand math was a big obstacle and I thought I was stupid. I do understand that match is important and it is involved in every aspect of our lives (sort of) but I was never ,and still, not able to enjoy or see it as “beautiful”.
I’ll try to put my reasons:
1- Math is un-relatable (specially the abstract one) :
Ok, I know I said math is in every aspect of our lives, but not all math is the same. Math is mostly is used as a tool and it’s very useful for that (to calculate financial stuff, areas, etc…)
But let me ask you this, do you think mathematicians came up with these formulas and equations to solve this particular type of problems? Some of them might have, but most of them solve math for the sake of math. They see it as a puzzle they have to solve and later they might find practical application for it. This is what I mean by it not being relatable to everyday life. Will I spend months or years trying to solve a puzzle that I don’t even know what will I use it for? Most people will answer no (I think)
To summarize this point, when Math is used as a tool it’s very useful and good and can be understood. But when used in it’s abstract form , a lot of people don’t see what’s the point of it.
2- Math doesn’t answer big questions about life.
Tightly related to my first point, Math is a tool to figure out bigger questions, and what are bigger questions than all sciences are trying to answer ; why are we here? How did we get here? etc. Now this is difference between theoretical physics and theoretical Math. Physics answers are directly related to our existence and everything around us, while Match answers are just…in our heads.
3- It’s full of symbols thus making it unreadable. It’s like reading a foreign language that you have no clue what the symbols mean. And there is no easily accessible guide to translate these symbols.
4- Mathematics lack the big picture? I always like have this response (mostly internally) when someone explains to me a match concept or equation, and the response is “so what?” or “ok…and?” , for example 2 parallel lines will never meet…ok and then? How is that useful? I know it’s useful somehow but I don’t see it now or it’s not clear, and that’s the problem!
This is my personal opinion, please let me know If I made sense