Recently I decided to go visit my friend who stays in Edinburgh as I hadn’t seen her in so long and knew I had to go before it got too close to assignment hand ins and our exam. So I had planned to forget about uni for a day whilst I went to visit her. Little did I realise it wasn’t long before my mind started thinking about mathematics, it really did prove to me just how much maths is everywhere.

We decided whilst walking about Edinburgh in the freezing cold that we would go in and have a look at two of the free art galleries – not something we would typically do but it was actually quite interesting. The first one we explored was full of massive paintings which was simply amazing, at this point I didn’t really think about maths, which annoys me now as I wish I had the chance to take some photos of them. When I think back to it I realise that the Golden Spiral definitely must have been hidden in some of the paintings as they were very similar to photos in the style of the Mona Lisa etc.

However when we went to the second art gallery it was more modern art – not your typical painting on the wall. This was full of things you could touch, things sitting in the middle of the room, things people usually question ‘how is this art?’, but their work is incredible. I quickly thought – my blog posts. I knew it would be something I could blog about because of how much maths was in these galleries. Every single thing in there can be linked to maths in some way or another and it amazed me that before doing this module I probably would have went in there and not thought twice about the mathematics behind anything, but to say the least that was all I could think about when it got in my head.

Here are some of the photos I took in the second gallery.

The train journey even got me thinking – purchasing my ticket, reading the platform number I had to go to, how long it would take me to get back to Dundee, how many stops there are on the journey back. Mathematics is in almost everything we do and we don’t even think about it.

This highlights to me how mathematics goes way beyond educational applications and how everyone needs basic mathematics to function in everyday life. Therefore in the future as a teacher it is crucial that you highlight to children the importance and the relevance of mathematics in everyone’s day to day life. Prove to children that maths isn’t all about answering a question correct in a textbook but much deeper than that.

This was my experience of how a simple trip to Edinburgh (where I was meant to be forgetting about uni work for a day), ended up making me appreciate the importance of everyday mathematics.