Day 15 (of 2025/26) Recreational Mathematics Episode 3 – mental math (an ode to algorithms cuz poetry is very maths)

Do we really know

What we think we thought?

Does 2+2 =5?

Or the more pedantic four?

Ought we articulate a times table

And why does division do why it does?

Why is subtraction

Diminishing in its understanding –

is this a loss of skill…

or appropriate transformation?

If knowledge like this gets lessened…

Is it a fail?

Or a pass with excellence?

Why do we focus on the basic

And mundane uses of number operations

When there is so much more beauty

To uncover and share

The wonder of numbers and all that is maths

We simplify arithmetic to plus and minus

With multiply and divide seen as fancier terms

We talk about how to get to x

Without stopping to disseminate the ‘why’

When mathematical thinking can be…

Fun and frustrating at the same time

While forcing some rigor because even

Calculators need a mindful pause…

How did a term once used for people get

So intertwined with a math machine?

Is the world ready

To unpack and reconsider

That math is more than about finding

A right and many wrong answers…

And instead explore the -ish towards numbers?

Perhaps it’s time to push back on tradition

to stop chasing only answers

and start to wander

in the fractal garden of math

And see what may lay just around the corner

Technolandy