I thought I had left them behind me years ago. I haven't done a single truly mathematical calculation (tallying up my holiday shopping expenditure doesn't count) ever since my calculator broke down on the day after my 'A' level Math exam. I thought that it was a Sign that I would never need face the horror, the horror again.
But my calculator has miraculously been fixed by my sister and now I am confronted with Math and Physics yet again. There should be a CNY movie on this: Resurrection of the Undead... Calculator. And all that stuff about the trope of the "ghost" and unfinished business.
I hate Math. I hate Physics. I hate numbers. If dyslexic people get their words jumbled up in their heads, I get numbers jumbled up in mine. They simply don't make sense to me. I couldn't understand a thing my lecturer was saying during the Computational Science lecture on Wed. He was just breezing through the convoluted workings of Mesopotamian multiplication and division, and even though I had the lecture notes right in front of me, I couldn't keep up with him at all.
I don't support the perpetuation of stereotypes but I am an Arts student who sucks big-time at Math. You've got to go slow with me. You've got to go through the workings step by step, like this:
Step 1: Divide number by 60.
Step 2: Take integer as new a and multiply remainder by 60.
Step 3
Step 4 etc. etc.
Any faster than this and this is what happens in my brain:
1538764168761868468716846... what?...687614616876812525777568... shit...6878158687... bloody Math...8765469135476... I DON'T F***ING UNDERSTAND A THING DAMNIT!!!
Physics is equally bad. I thought I would have an easier time with Great Ideas in Contemporary Physics since theory=more words than numbers=good thing for Lit major, but that is a fallacious equation. But one has to admit that scientists have fascinating ideas about the world. Beckett sees the world as a void of nothingness. Scientists before Rutherford saw the world as a plum cake.
That's right. They thought that the atom, the basic structure of all matter in the world, resembled that moist and crumbly and yummy desert Victorian moms put on their tea-trays.
Actually, since they were looking for a 2D model, I think a chocolate chip cookie would have been a better analogy. But this is a fascinating concept, at any rate. Too bad it was proven wrong and replaced with the whizzy electron model that we see today on the logo of IAEA.
And if my mom was God of the Universe, all atoms would have exactly 4 chocolate chip electrons. Everything would be so easy to understand then.
But before that happens, all I can do is wail plaintively at the Ghost of the Calculator, "But I'm just an Arts student..."
kaoru said at 2:26 AM