Dan BS what?!

Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome to my email alias. You probably received an email saying that you’ve been added to the ‘danbsmath’ alias, which stands for DANiel Budapest Semesters of MATHematics. For clarification to everyone—especially my professors—I don’t actually BS math…It’s just an alias name. Anyway—this is one of the ways that I will stay in contact with people while I am living in Budapest. If you wish not to receive mass emails from me, then email me and I’ll remove you from the alias. And if you know of anyone that hasn’t been getting my emails, then I can add them.

Last semester I completed an American Studies class where we studied “stories”—stories of individuals, stories of communities and stories of cultures. Because of that, I appreciate stories very much now. So I plan on telling you many stories. As Native American writer Thomas King suggests, stories make up who we are. As such, I will not only tell my story, but also the collective story of the Hungarian people. At first, I will write about my observations of the culture, but as I become more immersed in the culture, I hope to analyze the culture without being pretentious; I hope to compare the American story to the Hungarian story. I hope to tell you another story too—the story of math.

When I tell people I am a math major, many people say, “oh…I hated math.” First, they hate math as if math is one quantified thing—like green onions or Coke, but math has a much broader scope; arguably, it’s everything. Second, they “hated” math as if they’re done with it—forever. Americans have socially constructed their hatred toward math. I believe everyone can be good at math, but something in their past has made math a burden for them—perhaps one former teacher turned them off from it. Yet, it seems like we all had that one teacher. Why is that? We live in a culture where we aren’t required to think about math. We rely on calculators at work and tip charts in restaurants and others to do math for us. If I had a dream job, I would teach a class called “the joy of mathematics” so people could see how wonderful math is and how it fits into our lives; I’m trying to change the story of our culture’s hatred toward math. So if I learn any good content for my hypothetical course, I’ll share it with you. But—I am cognizant that many of you don’t have a passion for math, so that won’t be the only thing I write about.

I also will have a staple blog that will be more for pictures and will have some of the same information. I haven’t set up the blog yet, so I will send that address later.

Why am I studying theoretical mathematics in Budapest?
Good question. I am a math nerd and I live the math I learn. (Cauchy—or “Couchy”—sequences…anyone? Anyone? Ok…I’ll try not to tell too many inside jokes.) Hungary has a strong tradition of Math and Science education. Some of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century are Hungarian, including Paul Erdös, John von Neumann and E.P. Wigner. From this tradition, Hungarians invented the Rubik’s cube, non-Euclidian geometry, the hydrogen bomb and the BASIC programming language. And the ball-point pen—but that’s not math-related (maybe I’ll have to switch from felt-tip to ball-point while I’m over there and working on math). There have been some great mathematicians from a great education system, so I am honored to be part of this tradition, and I truly will be standing on the shoulders of giants.

I will be leaving January 14th. You probably won’t hear from me again on this alias until then…I just wanted to get this alias set up.

Happy Holidays!
Daniel