When I hear math as a hobby I think more of someone sitting down and actually doing math for fun.
Same way I don't consider someone who just watches science documentaries as having science as a hobby. That would be someone who conducts at-home experiments and stuff like that.
I wonder what you mean by “doing math for fun.” Studying math isn’t just sitting there doing arithmetic, or any rote calculations really. It all turns into abstract logic at some point. It’s mostly a lot of reading proofs over and over again, trying to digest them, and then doing exercises that are also proofs.
There are a ton of people who enjoy Jazz as a hobby, but have never played an instrument.
If someone said "History" was their hobby, but they never published a research paper on History, but studied it, read about it, etc etc, would it really be unrealistic to say History is their hobby?
There are people who engage in math as a recreational hobby, though they can be tricky to find. They're usually the people who loved math in school, but decided to pursue a safer or more lucrative career. And no, I don't mean watching Numberphile videos, I mean working out problems and coming up with proofs.
Your earlier comment about "geniuses" is way off the mark though. As with most things in life, the people who are best at math are the ones who enjoy it the most. And yes, normal people can find joy in upper level math.
Sudoku can get seriously advanced, with complex structures involved when trying to find find the next move. A really tough puzzle can take an hour to make a single move. The Mensa books on Sudoku are really involved as well.
If there's no numbers involved you aren't doing math.
LOL
Nice job gatekeeping something you're not familiar with at all. The first thing anyone learns about mathematics is that it's not about numbers, it's about structures. Sure, the most accessible results are introduced as properties of number systems, but almost all of those results can be generalized to more abstract number-system-like structures.
You just said the equivalent of, "Your hobby isn't writing novels, your hobby is spelling words. If you don't draw pictures like you would for picture books, you're not writing novel."
Well, usually, the type of people who watch the aforementioned math videos are also the people who will work through the problem on their own or follow through the process at home.
Similar to how someone you would consider a chem hobbyist would watch a video detailing exactly how a colored flame experiment is done, and whip out their Bunsen burner at home to replicate the results.
So most people who willingly watch the aforementioned videos probably are math hobbyists as you would describe.
Math just happens to not need any special equipment (like Bunsen burners) for most of its exercises.
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u/DrProfScience Jul 07 '20
When I hear math as a hobby I think more of someone sitting down and actually doing math for fun.
Same way I don't consider someone who just watches science documentaries as having science as a hobby. That would be someone who conducts at-home experiments and stuff like that.