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by doctorpangloss 9 hours ago
okay, another POV is that hardly any real problems are math problems, but we seem to call solving math problems "problem solving" when that's really not true at all. like the easy part is the math. the hard part is persuading other people.
1 comments

A great many real world problems have, at their crux, a mathematical problem. A mathematician paired with a subject matter expert can be powerful indeed when each sees deeply into the others' blind spots. But, I've heard statements like yours a lot over the years: assuming mathematicians aren't fully aware of the limitations of what you think math is.
Its all a math problem, and if it isn't a math problem, its a database problem. I come across a lot of problems, and since I always try to reduce it to a math problem... I intuitively come up with both the solution to the problem, but solutions to other problems. But, if it's not a math problem, of course, its a database problem.

I would safely assume that there are no limitations of what mathematicians can do, with one important exception: Andrew, for whom I argued about the mis-uses of Infinity. Andrew is, well, rather famous.

The hard part is often finding a way to turn your business problem into a math problem in the first place.
Database problems are math problems too.