My reaction toward the question from one senior researcher asking for my grading logic caught up my attention. Like I become stressed about the ”correctness” of my grading logic, also become stressed about ”clarify” it in a short time. I think this pressure from quantitative rigourness originates from my math classes. In the past, almost of all my math teachers, he or she tend to encourage, praise and prefer students who can reach such quantitative rigourness as fast as they can. For me, I realize that I can not just accept ‘1+4 = 5’ which puzzles me a lot. instead, I need more explanation of what is 1, what is 4, what is 5 and what is + and what is =? I can not just accept a logic imposed on me.
However, my rejection (driven by my truth-seeking personality) toward such imposition always leads to sort of punishment in my math classes. Either it comes with a relatively low grade than my peers on my math grades since my slower question solving process or the need of more enriched explanation. Once the math teacher insulted me by putting my exam papers at last so everyone knows that I achieve the least grades among the class for that exam.
What is the point of doing this apart from shaming a student like me, and infusing the fear in me of not accepting their logic of maths.
Something I realised long after is that I really love math as an language, I love its simplicity, love its romantics, love its humours especially when I was first introduced to applied mathematics. I have been struggled with those textbook still though. However I never give up understanding all kinds of math using my own way throughout my college. It turns out, thanks to that period, I establish my own system of learning, that is to break down any knowledge(”it”) I encountered in terms into some core questions:
why it is this?
how it is this?
what is this?
can it be replaced?
I remember, It took me very long time sometimes to even absorb one sentence on some textbooks which could do a better job I believe. From a hindsight, I started training myself as a research early back then probably because my experience of leading some research projects at that time already. I guess ”research’ chose me at that time and I chose ‘research’ again and will always handle with some sorts of uncertainty :
” be honest about the confusion toward the encounters”
” Break the encounters down to our own context/way of understanding/languages”
” Push the analysis into a more theoretical level”
”Validate the temporary conclusion ”
While writing this blog, I came across a book titled Is Math Real? by Eugenia Cheng. From a researcher’s perspective, she articulates a profound understanding of mathematics—one that resonated deeply with my own experience of engaging with math.
Her insights also helped me frame an ongoing dilemma, or perhaps a persistent confusion, in my research practice: In the early stage of each research project, meaning is often not yet evident to me; the “why” remains unanswered or answered insufficiently for me. Yet a choice of starting point—among countless (1) or actually non-established (0) possibilities—is still necessary to enable progress. Then it seems that this starting point is almost arbitrary, like the number 42, jokingly treated as a universal secret in computer science.
The decision must be made before its justification is understood.The timing of making a decision and the timing of understanding that decision do not necessarily align. This mismatch can confuse us, and at times even paralyze us to act. Cheng’s statement offers a kind of meta-understanding of this tension:
“The question is no longer why does ‘1 + 1 = 2,’ but rather ‘where does 1 + 1 = 2’? And then ‘what else must be true in a world where 1 + 1 = 2?’ or, more fundamentally, ‘what is a world in which 1 + 1 = 2?’”
This reframing shifts attention away from premature justification and toward the structure of the world in which our assumptions operate—a perspective that feels both liberating and grounding for research in its uncertain beginnings.
If we act upon this belief—whether consciously or not—we may be able to continue building the house of truth using blocks of assumption. How paradoxical.
RoofGazers 