I don't see what's wrong with "Multiplication copies things".
The fact that "copying" can be a continual scale from 10 copies to 1 copy down to half a copy and zero copies captures most of the behavior that a non-math person working as a programmer(One of the main uses for math, right next to using it to learn other math and becoming a math-heavy coder) is interested in.
The main actual uses of multiplication before you get to advanced stuff are things like volume controls, total price of N units, area of a square, etc, that are pretty much copying.
Except Ohm's law. That doesn't quite fit intuitive models of math exactly, and when you actually go to use it you usually wind up wanting to know power dissipation which is nonlinear in a very bizzare multi-variable way with some IRL use cases, since you're usually looking at systems as a whole.
The fact that "copying" can be a continual scale from 10 copies to 1 copy down to half a copy and zero copies captures most of the behavior that a non-math person working as a programmer(One of the main uses for math, right next to using it to learn other math and becoming a math-heavy coder) is interested in.
The main actual uses of multiplication before you get to advanced stuff are things like volume controls, total price of N units, area of a square, etc, that are pretty much copying.
Except Ohm's law. That doesn't quite fit intuitive models of math exactly, and when you actually go to use it you usually wind up wanting to know power dissipation which is nonlinear in a very bizzare multi-variable way with some IRL use cases, since you're usually looking at systems as a whole.