Maths
Learning a Language makes one literate. Learning Maths and using it everyday makes one numerate. Most people who are literate could be innumerate.
Maths is a vital tool in helping us making choice as it allows us to understand, measure, and takes the decision. A cynical example of applying maths to measure corruption:- India ranks among the worst countries in corruption. The extent of the involvement of Government is all surpassing. Everyone needs to bribe the small officials here and there. The big corporations who enter India have to grease palms of the big politicians. The money usually goes to a number of people in the hierarchy at different point and times. Assuming, that the overall expense to the headcount ‘bribery’ is conservatively 20% of the overall investments or income of a firm and accounting for the fact that the size of the national economy was USD 1 Trillion – Bribery can be conservatively estimated to be a lucrative market worth USD 200 billion growing atleast 7-8% YOY. The best part is that it is a monopoly and cooperative run by 500 parliamentarians and the bureaucracy. (The market doesn’t take into account the equally big shadow economy where the % age would be higher). its a completely domestic market with no seasonality. Do note that since this is a monopoly the size of this market is equal to the revenue of the “Co-op of Swindlers of India”. Compare this USD 200 bn revenue of this corporation compared to the revenue of the huge Tata Group which is USD 50 bn or one of the biggest employers in India Infosys whose revenue is USD 5bn.
Consider the amount of money stashed with some of the politicians who have been in the business for long.
Physics
The most striking revelation to me was that everything around me is basically made of atoms and cells. The chair is a collection of atoms, so is the laptop, the book, the ink, the glass. Analogically, I realised that the human scientific investigation and emperical analysis has been to understand the properties of these atoms and then mould them to our own use – which is what we call physics. The study of physics lead us to reason, logic and understanding the cause of things around us – nothing is more satisfying and fascinating then to answer the Whys!
Economics
Economics is to humans what Physics is to objects. Economics tries to understand Human Behavior against choices. Humans are much tougher to study because a large part of decisions flow from emotions and feelings – thus Economics always follow a caveat that it studies the choices made by rational human beings. Nevertheless, it allows insights into behaviours individually and groups and answer another large number of Whys.
