Math Half Marathon (without any running)
Hey there. I am Emina, new BH Futures scholar and I want to share my Math Half Marathon experience with you.
People often say that mathematics teaches us to think. A good mathematician cannot be a bad thinker. A good engineer cannot be a bad mathematician, which implies that a good engineer cannot be a bad thinker. That's what logic says. From this logic, we can draw an important message, which is to think and learn every day. This Friday, May 31, 2019. I had such an opportunity to learn and think out because I participated in the Mathematical half marathon in Tuzla, together with my friends from the BH Futures Foundation.
Do you know what a sunflower and a snail have in common? ‘Nothing’ would probably be the answer for the majority of people. In fact, the sunflower seeds and the shape of the snail’s house both form the Fibonacci spiral. The number of keys within one piano octave is the Fibonacci number. Also, the number of flower petals is always the Fibonacci number. Do you know why the bride's chair is one of the most important theories of geometry? Because it is the first and the most famous proof of Pythagorean theorem!
Although I am an engineering student, I would not be able to answer these questions if I had not listened to lectures on this half-marathon, from which I discovered something new and which encouraged me to think differently and out of the box. Definitely, the most interesting lecture for me was the one about Fibonacci, and in particular, I was fascinated by the story of the golden section, also known as the golden mean, which is at the same time the relationship between two neighboring Fibonacci numbers. In fact, the relationship of many phenomena in nature is the golden section. Our heart rate, the ratio of DNA spirals, the dimensions of our face and body, the spiral structure of countless galaxies. Moreover, the term of the golden mean penetrates all spheres of human life. We need to set up high enough and ambitious goals, but not too high in order to be able to fulfill them.
It is nice to strive for perfectionism, but to a certain degree, in order not to experience a failure. We need to rejoice enough to be happy, but not too much because it pulls a stroke of bad luck – this is at least what people say. Although it is not so obvious, an ordinary number is a rule of life, and mathematics is not just a plain group of numbers.
