It is cliche that broaching the subjects of religion or politics in a friendly conversation is impolite. My personal experience indicates that introducing mathematics into a conversation is often a poor idea as well. A typical response is "I'm not in school."
Why this banishment of mathematics from casual conversation? Why should my social life be hindered by the aversion of others to my favorite subject? In my personal opinion, mathematics is fun. Now you may have already formed the opinion that I am one vector short of a full basis, but please allow me a brief defense. Consider the proof below.
Math is Fun
proof
Games are fun. I take this as an accepted axiom.
Games are math. Games of chance are probabilistic in nature; tournaments are part of graph theory, games of limited moves (e.g., chess, checkers, shanghai) are studied using combinatorics, and the list continues.
Since games are fun, and games are math, I conclude that math is fun.
Q.E.D.
Do you object to this proof? If you can find a flaw, then you have some skill at the most basic aspect of mathematics: logic. If you cannot find a flaw in this proof, then you must accept the truth thereof.
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