Imagine you are at a store during Black Friday. There are ‘SALE’ signs everywhere. In the sale, if you buy two of anything, you get the third for half off. You have 50 bucks. Then you ask yourself what the most expensive thing you can buy is.

The world is filled with things we do not fully understand, like the situation above. Mathematicians know this as well as anyone. Because of this, they invented an entire branch of mathematics to work with uncertain facts. That is, of course, algebra. Algebra is broadly defined as the branch of mathematics devoted to doing arithmetic on objects that aren’t necessarily numbers.

Mathematicians use algebra to either find unknown numbers or to find numbers that do not even exist. Algebra allows us to find the number of objects we can purchase with 50 dollars. But it also allows us to find the number of objects we could purchase with any amount of money.

Though algebra always existed in idea, it was not until the end of the 16th century that it existed in a more structured form. The French mathematician François Viète was the first to introduce notations for algebra problems.

Before him, the Greeks and Arabs had come up with ways of finding unknowns but they had not come up with a way of writing the problems – which could be used over and over again with different unknowns.

Viète set up a structure and system of symbols for writing down all algebraic problems so that the specifics could change from one situation to another. That structure is widely used today, even though he did not even have the equal sign (=) figured out.

As much as you might hate doing algebra in school, you have to like the fact that it exists in the world. It would be terrible to live in a world where we could not all agree on how to find unknown information. But if you want to understand trade, sales, and the universe at large you must speak the language of the numbers: Mathematics.

Even though it is not garanteed you will unveil the biggest questions for humanity, not knowing it may make your life miserable. And as we well know by the words of everyone’s favorite astrophysicist: ‘The world is in no obligation to make sense to you’. So, go out there and try to figure things out!