Image by svklimkin from Pixabay
“Actually, no, Rob, getting 12 pieces of food cut 12 times isn't going to help,” eleven-year-old Eleanor Ludlow said to her five-year-old baby brother Lil' Robert Ludlow, “because while the multiplication and division we can do with the times tables is really clean, when you cut things with a knife there's always a little bit left on the knife.”
“But, Ellie, how come the paper math is better than the knife math?”
“It's just not a perfect world, Rob. Things in math are as good as we can imagine them, but in the real world, things can and do go wrong, a lot. There's always a little bit we can't get to. There was this guy named Godel who was a mathematician who said that no matter what we do in the real world, there's always a bit that is going to get away – it's called the incompleteness theorem.”
Lil' Robert considered this for a long time.
“OK, my brain can't hold all that,” he said, “but, see, I get that I should be happy with one good piece cut into pieces I can chew.”
“Right, because you'll get tall when you're supposed to, and you'll be as tall as you're supposed to be then.”
“But, Ellie, I just learned all this math for nothing!”
“Nope. You have that for the rest of your life to do fun things with it. If you want to make sure all of us have six cherries each out of a basket, how many cherries need to be in the basket? There's seven of us, so, 6 times 7.”
Lil' Robert looked down at the times tables and ran his little fingers across … .
“Forty-two!” he said. “That basket needs to have 42 cherries in it!”
“And so, if you have 42 cherries, and you need to divide them equally between all seven of us, how many cherries should you give me, Andrew, George, Amanda, Edwina, and Grayson while keeping the same amount for yourself? What is 42 divided by 7?”
Lil' Robert put his fingers on 42 on the times tables and ran them up and across.
“Six – we need to get six each – 42 divided by 7 is 6!”
“And 42 divided by 6 is …?”
“It's gotta be the other number – 42 divided by 6 has gotta be 7!”
“So, now, in the real world, if we run too fast we may drop the basket and some may roll away or get smushed, but math helps us know what we want to do.”
“I get it! I get it now!” he said. “Math helps us figure out how much food we need!”
“Yep, and a lot of other things too.”
“I got this!” Lil' Robert said. “I got this!”
“The thing is, though, Rob, you gotta get really good at addition and multiplication so that subtraction and division are easy. You count really well, so addition is the next step, and when you get really good at that, then you will be able to subtract easily, and then multiplying is just big addition, and division is just big subtraction. So, you want to do less division right now, but you'll catch up quick once you can add, subtract, and multiply really well.”
“I got this – I'm telling you, I got this, Ellie, because what I'mma do is use this to make sure everybody gets enough to eat!”
“Well, you're going to West Point, so, military people have gotta eat because the Army runs on its stomach.”
“I'm going to be the general of food!” Lil' Robert said. “I got this!”
“That's called 'commissary general,' actually,” Eleanor said, 'and by the time you get old enough, they probably will need a new one.”
“I got this, Ellie! I got this!”
Nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth overheard the conversation and came over.
“You know my fiance Louisa is a math genius and would love to tutor your brother, Ellie,” he said. “I mean, if he works hard, he can probably get subtraction down by next week.”
“Look, I work hard, because, see, I got a lot to do and so I gotta do it – so yeah, subtraction by next week, and then the week after that I'm going to get division down, and then the week after that I'm going to West Point, and then the week after that … OK that's too much for my brain, but, let's get started! I like Louisa! She's nice! Let's get started!”
“But see, Andy, I don't know if that was any better than it was before,” nine-year-old George Ludlow said as he and his big brother ten-year-old Andrew watched the conversation between their big sister, their baby brother, and Vertran. “I mean, before, Rob was just confused because he was five, but now his brain is going to be having way too much in it for his little body.”
“Well, maybe,” Andrew said, “but think about it: now he has the right idea. I would have done what Eleanor did, because being confused on the right stuff is better than being confused on the wrong stuff.”
“But, Andy, you can always lick the knife to get what you lose off of it when you cut stuff,” George said.
“But George, you can also cut your tongue open.”
“Yikes – never mind!” George said.
