Well friend, here we are. It’s the very last letter of the mathabet. Not quite sure how I feel about this. I’m super excited that I saw this idea through to the end, with an entire season of posts and podcast episodes and a reference book to accompany it. At the same time, I’m also a little sad that it’s nearly complete. It has been such a fun experience for me to create this mathabet journey for you and I truly hope you have had a revelation or two about where math shows up for you every day.
{This is a modified transcript for Episode 53 of the I See Math People podcast. To listen instead, click here.}
Have you been having some mini-celebrations when you recognize the mathematical thinking you are doing? I hope so. And I’d love to hear about them through comments here, on the podcast or in my dms over on Instagram.
I want to celebrate with you!
I also hope you will check out the book, so you can have the ideas I’ve shared during our time together right at your fingertips…plus a few more ideas that didn’t make it into the discussion. You can find MATHABET by heading over to onamission.bio/jennifermasonhardin. While you are there, I hope you’ll also meet me in your inbox so we can stay connected throughout the off season. Every couple of weeks or so, I’ll be sending encouraging messages or so that remind you of your math personness to increase your awareness of where you interact with math so you can start to shift that mindset and see yourself as a math person.
Let’s keep this show going by talking about a couple of mathematical ideas beginning with the letter Z. I say a couple, because, well, unless you are studying statistics or work in a field that utilizes z-scores when analyzing data, there are only a couple ideas beginning with Z that really apply to your daily life.
The first one might be obvious…were you thinking of zero?
Zero
As you know, zero is a number that means none. You can have zero dollars in your wallet. You can have zero patience for a situation. Your gas tank might be completely empty…that is, it might have zero gas in it. You get the idea.
Zero as a value, or lack of value, is one thing. But, did you know zero also has a much more important role in our lives?
Without zero, we would have a difficult time distinguishing between numbers like 52 and 502. In this use, the zero serves as a placeholder to show when a number includes an empty place value. So in the example of 502, we can think of this number as 5 hundreds, 0 tens, and 2 ones, where hundreds, tens, and ones indicate place value.
Did that bring back some math class memories?
Fun fact: Before the use of zero as we know it today, ancient number systems used a variety of symbols to distinguish between numbers like 52 and 502. It was much later that the idea of zero having its own properties was developed.
When and where do you interact with the idea of zero? I hope you are noticing zero and recognizing that interacting with this idea makes you a math person.
What else begins with Z?
Zone
Zone is another word for area, which we discussed way back in this post.
You interact with no parking zones and school zones on a regular basis. Area codes and zip codes also represent zones…for phone numbers and mailing addresses. And if you are a football fan, I know you are familiar with the “red zone,” the area of the field that is close to the “end zone” and where exciting action often takes place.
No matter where or how you interact with the idea of a zone, I hope you realize doing so makes you a math person
I’m so grateful you joined the conversation today! I’m on a mission to change the way the world sees math, starting with you. If you found value in this post, if something you read made you pause, or if you suddenly realized the hidden math in something you do every day, now is the time to join the movement!
When you comment here and share this site, or when you subscribe to, rate, and share the I See Math People podcast, the algorithms will show it to more people and the more people who get the message, the more mindsets can begin to shift.
Thank you for being part of this discussion of two mathematical concepts beginning with the letter Z. I truly hope you heard something about zero and zone you can relate to and that it makes you stop and think about where math shows up for you on a daily basis. Noticing where you interact with math is the first step to beginning your mindset shift and seeing yourself as the math person you really are.
I’m Jennifer Mason Hardin and everywhere I look I see math people just like you..
