Focus On Learning: ‘Even in AI age, mathematics is the language of all sciences’

You call it magic until you don’t understand. Yes, I am talking about mathematics, which is the mother of all science disciplines --- be it physics or economics. The subject has been the tool with which humans have tried to decode the environment they see around and form equations which in turn have connected all theories. Its principles have explained to us the impossible and laid the road for research into similar lines.

However, with computers all around and artificial intelligence (AI) slowly taking control, many believe that mathematics as a tool to solve our problems would be sidelined and AI will do all the work. Those who say this have their own reasons to justify but I strongly disagree with them.

Today if the conventional mathematics is rather considered slow in comparison to AI, as we think, I say that mathematics is the basis of computing and developing algorithms for programming.

Various upcoming fields like data science and actuarial sciences, which use various computer software, are based on mathematical principles like probability theory, linear algebra and calculus. All the inferences that a computer makes on processing loads of data are the result of mathematical algorithms which, in turn, are developed into codes by programmers.

If the concepts of zero and decimal weren’t introduced, space trips would have not happened. Mathematics is still the language of all sciences.

(The author Akul Malhotra is a Class 12 student of St. Columba’s School, Ashok Place. Views expressed here personal.)