Abstractionism (philosophy of mathematics)

Abstractionism is a big word that means understanding math concepts by breaking them down and simplifying them as much as possible. Imagine you have a bunch of toys, like balls and blocks, but you can't play with them until you put them in a toy box. That toy box is like abstraction: it helps you organize and understand the toys better.

When you learn math, you start with simple things like counting and adding. But as you get older, math can get more complicated, like when you start learning about fractions, negative numbers, and geometry. Abstraction helps you understand these concepts better by breaking them down into simpler parts. For example, instead of looking at a whole pie, you can break it into slices to understand fractions.

Abstraction also helps mathematicians make discoveries and solve problems. They use abstract ideas to solve real-world problems, like figuring out how to measure distances between planets or how to design a building that won't fall down.

So, just like a toy box helps you organize and understand your toys better, abstraction helps us organize and understand math concepts better, too.