The idea of: “It just works, that’s why!”

Ever since the adolescent days of a typical American school boy, our lives have been flooded with formulas and facts that we are just suppose to believe. Pupils of America were never given an explanation of why area equals base times height, they were never given a reason why the properties of a circle must use the number pie. How can we as humans and our human nature not ask or know why the number: 3.14 have anything to do with a fully round shape? Currently, most Americans do not know why formulas work and most of the population does not care about the subject in hand. Throw in back over 2000 years and an historian will find a man, named Plato. And he only cared about the newly discovered formulas and wanted to showcase a realistic reason to the populace and ultimately himself. He thought up the idea that there was a third dimension and all the formulas to anything and everything to do with mathematics could be found in the "Land of Forms." But do his ideas have any relevance or are they even possible?

The human idea of numbers is an abstract one. All the formulas mathematicians, in my opinion, have been based around the abstract idea of numbers. One cannot see or touch numbers, but they are there and they have changed our lives in countless ways. The reason why the formulas work is not like when the sunlight heats a dark outdoor surface or when water evaporates. These two examples would have happened without humans; they are a natural formation and are uncontrollable. Numbers, on the other hand, are an idea thought up within the human mind. I believe that the reason numbers and mathematical formulas work is because we make them work. In other words, if humans would have came up with some other way to measure or calculate everything (instead of numbers) then the formulas would be totally different. The numbers we know and use today are what make the formulas work.

Also there is the idea that the reason a formula works is because it has to and we must trust it. For example, we know that water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but the certain number is not the significant part of the equation. The fact of the matter is that we define the freezing point as 32 degrees. We define the formula that calculates heat index or wind chill. We as humans, use the number to convey a point that is true in nature. Without numbers we would not be able to wrap our minds around these ideas that are simplified by numbers and equations. We “invented” numbers as an aid in understanding complex situations. The numbers do not exist in a 3rd dimension. Occam’s razor states, “The simplest explanation is usually the right one.” This is especially true when it comes to mathematical formulas. They work because humans have designed a system that makes them work.