Numbers, Numbers, and More Numbers

By Michele Laughing-Reeves

When you were young every birthday was celebrated with a song and several candles that correspond to the number of trips you’ve taken around the Sun. Turning one was a big deal, and the party was a bigger deal despite you having no memories of it. Then you turned two, and your parents braced themselves for the terrible-two year. The third through twelfth birthdays blur into one big lump, and somewhere along the way, you remember the cake and the gifts. A few more milestone birthdays later, you are no longer announcing your age and just eating two servings of cake to mark the occasion. It’s just a number, right? Nope, that number is significant. Numbers are not for math only; you’ll be surprised how many times you have used numbers in one day.

For the Navajos, the number four is culturally significant. We have four sacred mountains, four directions, four colors, four main clans, four seasons, and we are in the fourth world. For other tribes, other numbers like two, for duality or opposition, three, for three sacred sites or three phases of dawn, and for some tribes the number seven is symbolic for the worlds above or the number of clans. The number nine is usually the number of days healing ceremonies or festival last. Numbers hold cultural value, representing the way of the universe for indigenous people; therefore, these numbers should be respected.

Meanwhile, in the daily bustle of work, school, sports, and shopping, numbers take on a whole different, perhaps challenging, meaning. Silversmiths, for example, can compute math in their heads, without needing paper-and-pencil or a calculator. I’ve stood by at local jewelry supply stores and watched in amazement how silversmiths quickly add, multiply, divide, and subtract how much silver they need, if they have the budget, and how many jewelry pieces can be made from a sheet of silver. When they get the silver home, they start the next level of math— geometry. Silversmiths can literally teach consumer math, just take a good look at a bracelet or circular stamp work or needlepoint settings to appreciate the accuracy of the math. That is also the case for weavers, potters, bead workers, and other skilled craftsperson.

If you are a student, you definitely have a math class on your schedule. You either love math because you understand numbers and how they fit into equations, or you don’t like math because you don’t understand the equations or the application of the equations. The numbers themselves are not the problem, it’s what to do with the numbers that is the hang up. To complicate things, the number’s meaning changes when you put a negative sign in front of it, and we all can feel the huge difference between 320 C and -320 C. Then, add a square root symbol or an exponent, now the number has changed again. To further complicate things, science gets into the mix when scientific notations are used to shorten extremely large numbers, like the distance from Earth to Pluto in miles, or extremely small numbers, like the weight of an electron. Try multiplying two numbers written in scientific notation, and you’ll understand that the difficulty, for many, is with the equation and not the individual numbers.

If you’re an athlete, numbers are everything. You want to finish the season 14 and “oh” (0). When the buzzer goes off, you want your team to have the larger number of points. Weightlifters train to out lift their opponents by lifting more weights. But not all athletes win with higher numbers, cross country runners aim for the fastest time, and to win the meet, a team must place all their runners in lower numbered positions, like the top 10. A perfect score of 15 occurs when a team’s five runners place 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th, which is rare. All race-to-end sports are timed and may require photo-finish photography to decide the victor. Golf isn’t a race but having the least number of strokes by the end of 27-hole course makes you the winner.

At some point in your day, you have made a purchase of some sort. A cup of Americano at Starbucks is about five dollars, a meal at McDonald’s is about ten dollars, gasoline at the pump is between three and four dollars per gallon, and a bottle of water from the vending machine is one dollar and fifty cents. If you bring a friend, then some

Center of a buckle

Numbers, Numbers, and More Numbers

of these costs will double. You get the point, these numbers are ingrained parts of our lives, so when we arrive in New York City and noticed that that same cup of Americano costs six dollars and not the five dollars you’re used to, it matters. The number matters, it’s more.

As you can see, numbers are underrated. I bet most of you are using that middle school math right now without realizing it. You may be using it to calculate how many half-cups of melted butter goes into a tripled cake recipe—because you just hit the Big 50. Don’t get hung up on how old you are, put it into perspective and appreciate the number of experiences and memories made in all those years, those months, those days, those hours, those minutes, and the exponential number of seconds (which is 1.57 X 109 for a 50-year-old).

Inspiring, igniting and empowering children in McKinley County.

REQUIREMENTS:

Commit to 1 year Spend a minimum of 4-6 hours a month with Little Must be at least 18 years old, Have reliable transportation, Submit an application and pass a background check

CONTACT US:

www.bbbsmountainregion.org

505-726-4285 100 East Aztec Avenue Gallup NM 87301