Imagine space as a trampoline: a continuing flat plain, massive yet subject to change.
A marble will roll across that trampoline in a straight line. But if you put a bowling ball in the center of that trampoline, the marble's trajectory will bend around the depression shaped by the bowling ball's weight. That warped path also slows the marble.
"If you think of the trampoline as the universe, then the marble is a planet and the bowling ball is a star," explains Brian Kirby, a doctoral candidate in Binghamton University's mathematics program. "Masses create different ways that you can measure space and time throughout the universe, but it's really just time. How we measure time changes the geometry of the universe."
Take away the trampoline, the marble and the ball, and you're left with mathematics - a picture of the universe rendered into digits and equations, providing surprising insights into the nature of reality.
It's also a subject that many people dread - especially students working on their General Education requirements.
"A lot of people come in and they're scared of math. I know I was," reflects Kirby, who teaches calculus and pre-calculus at Binghamton. "I failed calculus my first semester of college - hard - so I can understand where a lot of them are coming from."
Initially interested in journalism and psychology, the Bronx native grew up in a working-class home and attended Orange County Community College. His later success at math came down to a specific number: 273, the cost of his mathematics textbook in 2006 dollars, not accounting for inflation. He was determined to get his money's worth out of that book.
"I decided to go back and take Pre-Calc and bridge the gap between what I needed to know and what I actually knew," he recounts. "And then in Calc II, it clicked: a switch flipped and I got really good at it."
Like the marble on the shifting plain of the trampoline, his own trajectory swerved. In 2008, he ended up at Binghamton for an unhappy semester before finishing his bachelor's degree at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He tried graduate school for a while but felt like he wasn't making a difference in the world.
Then he joined the Army for four years. Stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas, Kirby was actively involved in the War on Terror, combating human trafficking and drug trafficking on the U.S. border with Mexico. On a happier note, that's also where he met his wife.
After his time in the service ended, he went on to earn his master's in mathematics at Ohio University before deciding on Binghamton for his doctorate. He unexpectedly ended up in differential geometry - known in physics as general relativity - and found himself fascinated by the field.
"In general relativity, we study how mass creates gravity and how gravity distorts space and time," he explains. "Satellites depend on general relativity. If we didn't have this theory, your GPS couldn't tell you where to go because it wouldn't know where you are."
As he works on his dissertation, Kirby is still charting his own professional course. Become a professor? Work for an engineering firm, such as Boeing or Lockheed Martin?
His swerving course helps him bridge the gap with students in the classes he teaches, who come from a range of programs: engineering, the pre-med track, the School of Management, psychology. He's a source of real-life advice outside the classroom, too; undergraduates stop by his office to chat about switching majors, letters of recommendation or anything that's on their minds.
"The point of math as a Gen Ed isn't so that you're good at math. Our goal is to help students structure their thinking in a more logical and organized way," he reflects. "We just teach a different way of thinking."
Kirby's equation for college success goes beyond math or any individual class or subject: Don't be afraid. Learning is about expanding your horizons and broadening your view; obstacles are just part of the story.
"Don't let a bad teacher dictate how you feel about any subject. And a lot of the fears you have about math -about anything - are just wrong," he advises. "If you look at it for a bit with a different perspective, everything becomes easy."
