Wednesday word: induction

Having been once a mathematician, there are so many words whose meanings have split for me into two separate meanings: real world and math world. Ring, group, category, function. My mind jumps straight to the mathematical meaning for most of those. I don’t know if I want that anymore as I leave more and more math behind.

Induction is another one of those math words. Mathematical Induction has a sweet spot in my life because my OAC Algebra/Geometry teacher told the class that it was a completely useless thing of mathematics. Of course, mathematical induction is the only piece of high school mathematics that I used day-to-day for my PhD thesis, so I appreciate the irony.

But maybe my math vocabulary is fading. We bought an induction stove last week and only today did I realize that I hadn’t connected induction stove to mathematical induction. You lose words in any language you don’t use. I guess this is the start of my math loss.