Comfort Math?

[sythyry]

[OOC rowyn gave me an icon of Feralan and hCevian!  So, as promised, they will chat. -bb]

I am hCevian writing this.

When I am upset, I generally think about hyperbolic geometry to calm down.  When Feralan is upset, he often contemplates arithmetic or polynomial sequences of numbers. 

What kind of mathematics do you find most comforting?  Or, if not mathematics, what other thoughts comfort you when you are downcast or distressed?

Comments

[rowyn]

I think about God, which probably works much better when one believes in a loving and caring God than when one knows one's god is sadistic and twisted. Other things I think about are my friends and boyfriends.

Or I pet my cat, which is wonderfully comforting.

[elorie.livejournal.com]

My father, who was in the invasion of Normandy by Allied forces in World War II (a huge military operation, the largest in history), calmed himself by calculating the distance of one of the battleships* out in the Channel. He did so by counting the number of seconds between when he saw the guns fire and heard the report.


*USS Texas. It was two miles out.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

Fractals are most calming for myself. Self recursion in general is a calming thing for me.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I think about blowing things up and stabbing people. Sometimes when I'm *really* frustrated I think about blowing up or stabbing god. n.n

Thinking about good things doesn't really help because my current emotion gets pasted over the top of them. Getting distracted by something completly non-emotional -- I could see that working. It probably has worked even if I didn't do it on purpose.

I know the math that's most calming for me is the really simple stuff, like statistics or averages or comparing the DPS of different ways of blowing things up or stabbing people.

[rowyn]

Writing up character stats can be soothing. :)

Sometimes I think about stabbing or blowing things up, but it never makes me calmer, just madder. I have to distract myself if I'm angry. If I'm depressed, I'll think about stabbing myself, which also doesn't help me.

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

I throw myself into a complicated programming task which will involve all my mental capacities - similar to tweaking a pattern spell to fix s flaw, or improvising a cantrip.

[zeeth_kyrah]

When I'm feeling down, or worn out with a situation, I often think about probability curves in multidimensional space, and the shapes and energy patterns they can generate. In particular, I contemplate the probability curves which affect my own life, because I would not be suffering if there were no purpose in it. And also, my gods are comforting, able to speak to me in terms that get the point across better when I understand more.

When I'm really upset, I tend to just think about breaking things, which doesn't help much. It's a flaw of mine, and I'm working on it. Maybe if I calculated just how much force it would take, and looked at the larger pattern more often, I'd be able to lift out of that mood more easily -- it's worked before!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I don't get madder from thinking about violence. I get madder from thinking about whatever made me frustrated. Or from getting frustrated by new things. Or from listening to happy music sometimes.

[rowyn]

I guess sometimes cursing does make me feel better. Like screaming at my computer because it crashed in the middle of a Blood Bowl game. n_n

[oh6.livejournal.com]

I suppose for me most frequently it is cube roots.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

While I am not sure if I find it comforting, I enjoy working out Binary Sequences while I am alone and waiting for things. It's not a horribly useful thing, but it keeps my mind active for a little bit.

When I am horribly distressed and am not in the mood for self expression with art, then I typically read one of my game books and think of how to create situations that are as frustrating for other people as they are for me.

Typically, though, the only thing that tends to really bring me out of my funk is snuggling with my stuffed animal, though. I mean, if it's a horribly Deep funk...

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

The most calming forms of math are things of extreme regularity and pattern. So I'm more similar to Feralan than to you: arithmetic or polynomial sequences work well for me.

Counting down from 100 in some base by some small number relatively prime to the base gives me time to calm myself before I do anything stupid.

[redbird]

I find prime numbers comforting, sometimes. I use them, or perfect squares and cubes, to help me fall asleep sometimes. (The technique is to start with the ones I have memorized, and then gradually go to larger numbers, and let the calculations carry me off to sleep. They take enough attention to push aside certain sorts of stressful thoughts that can make sleep difficult, without any concern that I will need to stop and record what I've thought of, because I know that I will not discover anything new by mentally squaring integers or using the sieve of Eratosthenes to check primality.

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Subnet masking.

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

Numerical analysis, especially iterative methods that converge. That is quite reassuring.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

I don't normally think of math as comforting, but now that I'm pondering it I think I like squares. I like the predictability and the expansion.

Interesting question!

[shaterri.livejournal.com]

I must say that I too have given some thought to hyperbolic geometry when I'm worked up! It has long been a fascination of mine and I have several particular nooks that I've explored, particularly some pentagonal-chessboard games.

I often like to go into a sort of 'fugue state' with mathematics, studying subjects that are just at the edge of my comprehension, less for understanding than to simply let the words and the concepts flow over me. Generally when I do it's some form of deeply abstract, foundational mathematics; large-cardinals, model theory, recursion theory, and the like...

[draconis.livejournal.com]

I occasionally think about awkward functions, x^x and the like, or more often logical rather than mathematical things (incompleteness etc.)

Usually I just think about decayed, overgrown places and betentacled deities though.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

I've always found peculiar comfort in what is known as Euler's identity, the fact that e^iπ - 1 = 0. Order in a chaotic universe.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Except that that - should have been a +. Whoops. I may like the Identity, but apparently my keyboard conspires with my fingers not to!

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

IPv6 has ruined that outlet for me.

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

I try to slip away into the mind of a ttRPG character of mine.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

There is nothing abstract about large cardinals! Where do you live, man?

[ragarth.livejournal.com]

Most recently, triple integrals.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Speaking of amusing math, I came across the most delightful mathematical term today:

The Ham Sandwhich Theorem

[archadia.livejournal.com]

My comfort math is making graphs.

A pie chart or line graph makes even my cash flow seem pretty. Is this technically more art or is it still math?

[tracerj.livejournal.com]

When I'm heavily relaxed (however I get to that state), I know my mind's eye turns to slowly shifting tessellations of coloured polygons (generally simple and regular or stretched vertically from regular) and, strangely enough, letters or numbers. Being such a fan of typography – a sort of formalised calligraphy, for those from other worlds – means that I find as much fascination with the geometry of the printed glyph as with more natural or abstract forms.

I don't think of any maths in particular to calm down... but I might very well try that from now on, or perhaps examine where it is I actually do and simply haven't realise dit yet.