Why Math? How we Kill our Dreams
As a fifth grader, I realized I had become fascinated by pictures of houses and buildings. A photo book of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings enchanted me. I was in Europe then, so American literature was hard to come by, but I scavenged "Popular Mechanics" and saw floor plans. You could design buildings by drawing their guts! Wow!! I could sit and draw floor plans at my little desk for hours on end. My obsession was so evident to my parents that my 13th birthday gift was a drafting table. Back in the US, I made my way downtown Washington DC riding a series of busses to find drafting paper, a day-long adventure that resulted in purchasing a long scroll of paper instead of sheets. It was translucent and had a bit of a slick surface, which made my pencil drawings smear. I didn't realize that I needed to use a pen. I also didn't understand that the purpose of translucence was to allow the layering of floor plans to retain the same building shell but change the