An obsession with mathematics?

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Does anyone here have mathematics as a special interest or focus?

I know I did as a kid. Until I was 8 or so I was obsessed with mathematics, or anything to do with mathematics. Sadly, social workers and foster parents at the time killed my interest in mathematics by effectively waging all out war on it.

But mathematics sure seems to be one of the most fashionable interests among Aspies! Right up there with transport.

I hate it.

Unlike most of the special interests I had as a child, which were permitted or discouraged, my parents and teachers encouraged my interest in mathematics causing it to be far longer enduring than any of my other interests. Why would your social workers and foster parents be unhappy with your interest in math? My folks were delighted that I was interested in something academic even though they still didn’t understand how anyone could be that interested in anything.

I did a math as a second major "for fun" in college (and finished the entire program in 3 years)


So... yeah. I like math, even though I know I'll never be great at it (it takes me far too long to solve problems, even though I have fun doing it)

I used to be interested in numbers when I was a kid, so I was interested in mathematics to a degree. My parents thought I would grow up to be some sort of mathematician, though that never happened. I used to write numbers on tiles on the floor. I used to play with dice. I used to count anything and everything.

The interest subsided a lot after I grew up a bit, moving on to other things. I still am fascinated by numbers to some degree, but not to the point I was when I was growing up. Besides, true math, such as algebra, was a bit harder for me to grasp.

I can't understand why people try to stamp out our interests. It's as if they don't want us to make something of ourselves. I just don't understand that, yet again that never happened with me. My parents, and even teachers, sort of worked with me on what I really enjoyed. And aspieness wasn't even diagnosed at this time.

- Ray M -

By the time Ben was four he knew most of the times tables. when he was five he was doing long multiplication, When he was 9/10 we had a maths tutor come in once a week to teach him maths. When he was 10/11 he was teaching himself GCSE maths. He used to love maths and still does. But when he was younger he had an obssession with it. I taught him at home so we had no worries about anyone killing that love. His perfect afternoon was sitting with his maths book and sorting out math problems. I was never any good at maths so I couldn't help very much, so he would look at the back of the maths book at the answer and work backwards towards the problem. When he was 14 years old we arranged for him to go to college to do higher mathamatics GCSE, when he was 15 he passed the exam with a B grade.

I used to stink at math (i still do) think of it like a game, and you'll love it!

I always have to completely understand math, its components, and why things work.

As an example, I am not satisfied with memorizing the sine function. I have to know why it has that curve, why it has its dynamics, why it has certain values depending on the input.

I'm in precalc 2 right now... So relating to this, I'm not satisfied with knowing that sine is a relationship of opposite over hypotenuse. I have to think of its range, and why it gets closer and closer to 0 or 1 depending on the proportion of the triangle. Likewise, I have to understand how it repeats itself between 0 and pi, and pi and 2pi, as well as why the sign switches.

In other words, again, I have to know exactly how it works. Simply memorizing a theorem isn't sufficient for me. If I don't understand why it is that way, I can't use it.

I was alot as a kid too, even today if I like see 2 number I immediatly think of how they are related (like for example on one of those millage signs a few weeks ago I saw the numbers 51 and 204 and immedatly thought thats 4 times it.)

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Honestly, I don't like math for the sake of math. I am pretty good at math it just is that I tend to like other subjects better but I usually like it when there are solid mathematical relationships. When I was growing up I did not like math so much as I liked science. Science seemed amazing, it seemed to be at the core of understanding the universe. When I was young I didn't really understand how the subatomic particles in the world came together to make up everything, I didn't know the details behind black holes and anti-matter and I didn't know the nature of our biological systems very well either. I knew facts and details and so on and so forth but none of that stuff sunk in when I was in elementary school and my parents where even more clueless than I was on the matter. Oh well, now I am in High School and now I know more about these things and I have become the best science student in my school which is really sort of cool. Whatever, I was just reminiscing back to childhood really.

I like math as well. If I go to college, I hope to take some accounting courses.

I think some cashiers seem to like math as well. I once operated a fake cash register, but I accidentally pushed the button to open the drawer before I even did my register computing.

I know, that could lead you to some trouble because there are some very malicious people out there.

The whole philosophy of numbers just fascinates me. I think we deal with numbers every day, and the more we deal with them, the more we use them. I like the repetitious manner we deal with numbers in some cases. I think we, as people with AS, can learn better with a number scenario repeated over and over.

I was quite a good maths student through primary school and early high school but I was put in a lower class in late high school.
I'm a book-keeper/accountant now so I guess I'm stuck with doing math for a living

I agree with Awesomelyglorious. Math can be interesting, but it's a closed system with no mystery. There are just a bunch of clever tricks to get one equation to turn into another, but none of it means very much. That is, until you apply it to science. That's why I like physics. In fact, a good amount of math, like matrices and vectors are from physics equations. Mathematicians are not that interested in what an equation means so much as what it can turn into, and so you just have a bunch of self consistent equations that all agree but you can't really do anything with just the equations. But you can take a bit of calculus and derive classical mechanics, and use all these sophisticated mathematical techniques to solved differential equations in physics, and then go on to figure out the motion of quanta and the like. That is where math is really interesting: where it applies to real life.

I love mathematics. For a time I was addicted to maths. I used to solve number puzzles all day, and absolutely loved it. The first time I got hooked was after watching a short documentary on tv about number theory as a kid (I think I was 6 or 7 at the time). The documentary interviewed prominent mathematicians about why they became mathematicians and what motivates them. One of the interviewees traced back his love affair with maths to his young teens when he first came across a number series which famous mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss had proved. I remembered this series and one day decided to solve it myself. It was a series problem and I spent all day trying to come up with the proof for the series, and eventually found it. Great feeling. That was the start of the addiction.
I can't remember exactly why, but my interests in maths died in mid teens (maybe school, sports etc). But I still like solving number puzzles, logic puzzles etc. Love chess and sudoku.

I love it. I actually almost failed algebra in the 8th grade because I wouldn't pay attention. I wasn't paying attention because the teacher had all these rukik's cube-like puzzles around his room and I would do them during class. When he would take them away and put them on a shelf I would just stare at them and do them in my head. When he realized what I was doing he made a deal with me: I pay attention and he would let me bring a puzzle home each night. That seemed to work.

I really almost failed though, and would have hated math ever since.

Wow!

What an honor to be an accountant!