Proof It

My sophomore year of college was an interesting one. It was a pivotal point in my life…unfortunately I happen to be really bad at pivoting. Anyway, I spent my first year and half of college preparing to enter the 5 year masters accounting program and then it hit me. There was no way I wanted to be an accountant, not a chance. I was just as surprised as anyone considering the fact that A) well, I mean, I was pretty good at it B) my mom and the majority of my extended family are CPA's and C) it was a guaranteed money job. But I could not deny the feeling, accounting was not for me. After I pulled the emergency brake on that train, my second semester was spent exploring a variety of other subject matter in hopes of finding anything else to grab my attention. Looking back I’m not sure why I picked these but nevertheless I enrolled in the physics of sound, computer science and history of math course.

I did horrible in all three. But by far the most shocking was the math course. Although I was a Calculus TA at the time and certainly capable of talking and doing math, I apparently missed the part in the syllabus where I had to actually turn in my work, oops. Anyway, aside from just not following directions, I learned a great deal from the course. Initially, I wasn't sure what to expect, History of Math, I thought to myself: I'm good at math, I like history, this will be an easy course and I will walk out of here with some sweet Fine Arts credits (yeah I'm still not sure how that works). Turns out, it was way more intense than it sounds.

The course was conducted by a brilliant visiting professor from India. His English was horrible. Luckily, Indians (well and everyone else really) like redheads so I got a lot of ‘specialized’ attention…for you know…translations and such. The very first day of class he says, “Who can tell me what pi is?” Almost instantaneously, a pompous little nerd in the front row shot up his hand and spouts off 3.14…..blah blah blah followed by a brief explanation of what it's used for. Oh great, I think to myself, not only am I not going to understand the professor but I've got “Mr. I know all things math” ready to save us all from our silent ignorance. But Prof India goes on, “Can anyone tell me where pi came from?” Front row Frank tries but is quickly shot down. That is not what he meant and for the rest of the class he proceeds to show us an elaborate proof - how exactly pi came to be. I am not positive, but I'm fairly certain my mouth stayed gaped and my eyes blink free through the entire process. After all, I knew what pi was and I knew how to use it but it never occurred to me that while I was using pi to solve other problems it too had such a journey of its' own. The rest of the course continued in this fashion...we proved theory after theory, yes even the quadratic formula. I learned more about math than I ever thought possible. Ever. It was truly amazing, but without question, it is way harder to prove a math theory than to simply use it.

Now, in my old age I have found in other aspects of my life I often know about the pi and sometimes even how to use it. I typically know what the general concept is, an overview or at least a basic understanding of what mystical equations I must utilize to get to that final answer. The tricky part is actually coming around to it, proving what pi is actually made up of. And also, as I have learned over the years, this ends up being the most important part. The answer is not going to change – it is how I get there that matters, how I proof myself. So, despite no longer having an Indian to guide my way, I shall proof forward and yes, oh yes, I will solve pi.

P.S. if you ever want to know the proof to the slope of a line, just ask me…about 7 years ago.