
The asymmetry in storytelling between math and the other sciences - digital55
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/math-has-no-god-particle/
======
jcranberry
>"There is a general feeling in the pure math community that popularizing
mathematics is betraying mathematics,”

I don't think this is true at all. My experience with math professors is that
they either would welcome more popularity in the field, or they simply don't
care.

I DO think that they would be very dissatisfied with the kind of farcical
representation of physics that sometimes goes on (looking at you Michio Kaku).

I also think it's very misleading to say mathematics has nothing to do with
the real world. The obvious contradiction would be physics, since it's applied
math, but I think the quoted person was talking about mathematical research,
which is a much fairer point. While it's true that a lot, if not most, of
mathematical research has little to offer in terms of applications, but a lot
of times "useless" math can still describe real world phenomena, sometimes
very beautifully.

~~~
vorotato
You and the author are conflating two different things. The pure math
community probably DOES feel that popularizing only applied mathematics is
betraying pure mathematics, and they're probably right. We don't really teach
proofs outside of highschool geometric proofs and maybe a single class in
university. However there's no good reason why we can't popularize both
applied AND pure mathematics.

~~~
chrisdbaldwin
The real tragedy is that pure mathematics is hidden from students for too long
and many opt-out of that path in favor of "Actuarial Science" and applied
maths.

Real talk: pure maths was way more fun, interesting, and applicable to my life
as a software engineer than all the applied math and modelling that I
wrote/learned/etc. Pure mathematics expanded my mind unlike any other subject
matter.

~~~
mncharity
> The real tragedy is that pure mathematics is hidden from students

Physicists make a similar complaint. "Why would anyone _want_ to study
physics, when kids are not _shown_ any interesting physics?"

Chemistry education research characterizes pre-college chemistry education
content as incoherent, leaving both students and teachers confused and deeply
steeped in misconceptions.

Biology education... starts by deemphasizing it's core organizational
principle, and goes downhill from there.

> The real tragedy

Here's another. "It has been more than a decade since science education
research surprised us with how badly science education was failing students.
But even now, how often are students told? Instead, K-13, students have been
left to think their confusion and cluelessness, are strictly their own fault,
their own failing. Left to think science is boring. They are not told that
these are known defects of the wretched content we're giving them. Fixing the
content is hard. But telling them isn't. At what point does our failing to
notify them become an ethical failure?"

> pure maths was way more fun, interesting, and applicable to my life [as a
> software engineer]

It can be fun to create ELI5-ish stories about math in _everyday_ life. Math
as recognizing patterns. So for instance, moving one way on a "circular" path,
you come back around to the same position. As with boardgames, clocks,
parking, etc. Missed doing something at lunch today... perhaps try lunch
tomorrow. Missed a parking space and can't back up... perhaps drive around the
block. Category theory for kids.

~~~
dredmorbius
Could you give counterexamples of _good_ instruction or grounding in these
fields: physics, chemistry, biology?

Or maybe a clearer description of what constitutes the good and bad
approaches?

What are the core organising principles, in your view, of biology (and physics
and chemistry, if you can state them)?

It's an area of general interest to me.

~~~
empath75
The core organizing principle of biology is evolution and natural selection.

~~~
xiaoma
Why only natural selection instead of both natural selection and sexual
selection?

~~~
arkades
Because sexual selection is a subcategory of natural selection.

~~~
xiaoma
Ah interesting. They were contrasted as different categories of selection in
my school textbook. What do you call the other category/categories?

------
rspeer
I recognize a piece of background that the article is leaving unstated. A
decade ago, the mathematical group E_8 was the subject of a unified theory of
physics by an outsider, Antony Lisi, who called it "An Exceptionally Simple
Theory of Everything". [1]

This theory never got published (it was supposedly the most downloaded paper
on arXiV for a while, though). Peer review was not favorable to it. But the
popular press ran with it, especially because of the story they could tell
about how a surfer dude was maybe the next Einstein.

I assume that the echoes of this are why a mathematician writing down facts
about E_8 got caught up in an explosion of weird publicity about God
Particles.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory_of_Everything)

~~~
kbenson
I remember that. IIRC, the draw of the "surfer dude" wasn't just that he was a
surfer, but that he lived out of his van, was a mathematician or physicist,
and basically just traveled around surfing and doing theoretical math when he
wasn't surfing. It's fairly easy for a lot of people to romanticize that.

I don't recall whether I read about him, or watched a Ted talk, or both, but a
good portion of the time when I read "unified theory" some recollection of
that story comes back. I'm sure it helped that a very dumbed down version
could be understood almost purely through visual aids with pretty colors and
symmetry. ;)

~~~
eastWestMath
You'd be surprised at how many mathematicians are avid hikers. I've heard
stories of people flying to Calgary, disappearing in the Rockies, then showing
up at UBC for a conference over a month later.

~~~
rspeer
I think some mathematicians need inspiring natural scenery like programmers
need a good keyboard.

I have a friend who did a math post-doc at Calgary. When he "went to the lab"
to get research done, "the lab" was a mountaintop.

------
jasode
_> Even when researchers do want their work shared widely, why don’t we read
more about the fuel that makes math grow? “The physicists tell exciting
stories,” Vogan said. “In some ways, this is a failure of mathematicians to
tell exciting stories.” The physicists also have better names. Black hole and
God particle quicken the pulse somewhat more than “irreducible unitary
representation.”_

Mathematics also has some cute names such as Monstrous Moonshine[1] and Hairy
Ball Theorem[2]. I don't understand Monstrous Moonshine but the name had
enough poetry to cause stickiness in the brain for later recall. A math
problem closer to layman's experience with a cute name might be the "Secretary
Problem".[3]

Leaving aside the naming and surveying the "importance" of open math
problems... I would guess the P!=NP proof would be an example. Unfortunately,
it doesn't have any easy description that the average person would understand.
The same goes for all the other Clay[4] Millenium problems.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem)

[4] [http://www.claymath.org/millennium-
problems](http://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems)

~~~
wayn3
there are a lot of very interesting math things with cool names.

heres the problem. mathematicians dont build expensive shit. theres no math
lhc that cost the equivalent of feeding bangladesh for a century that econ
minded folks could whine about.

theres no "mathematicians will create a black hole under geneva that will
swallow us all".

if the riemann conjecture is proven, precisely nothing happens. its not even
possible that something happens in the tangible world, because of some result
in mathematics.

mathematics isnt irrelevant because it doesnt have cool names. its irrelevant
because its impossible to make the news.

a biologist can accidentally create a virus that kills us all. obviously
science fiction, but its at least potentially possible.

a chemist can invent some kind of explosive that isis could steal and make
some building go boom.

physicists can totally make black holes appear and build warp drives and all
this weird stuff that is more fiction than science, but spock talked about it
and light sabers duh.

mathematics just powers all those things. there are no lasers without math,
either, but they arent attributed to mathematics. they are physics stuff.

when the first fusion reactor finally runs profitably, mathematics will have
contributed a lot of necessities. but its the billionaire douche who funded
the thing who gets to talk about how the engineers built an impressive
machine.

mathematics doesnt get any kind of fame outside the scientific world, because
its invisible. but the scientists who use all the math stuff know that without
mathematics, they'd be almost useless.

~~~
ianai
I tell people, sometimes, that studying mathematics felt like studying god's
(goddess') thoughts. Physics and the like describe this universe - and somehow
mathematics reaches something different.

If anything, I wish we had something akin to a mathematics monastery. I'm not
talking about academia - that avenue clearly leads to financial enslavement at
this point. I'm talking about a place with lots of chalk boards and pretty
basic room/board.

What would it contribute to society? How about...people with increased
thinking skills and a place to belong? It could also taken on consulting work
from everywhere.

It may end up looking like a liberal arts college or the math wing of the NSA
- sans secrecy. I'd also want the barriers to entry to be low.

~~~
indigochill
If you haven't read "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson, you'd probably enjoy it.
It's a science fiction story about basically math monks (there's also a heavy
dose of philosophy, though it's pretty much all connected to math in some
way).

~~~
alanfalcon
I second this suggestion. Plow through until it clicks and be prepared to give
it a second read-through for an all-new experience. That is if you're slow to
catch on, as I was.

~~~
ianai
I bought it. The concept sounds like an interesting thought.

------
redthrowaway
By far the best math teacher I ever had, Fred Irani, taught math in a way no
teacher I'd had before or since did. We didn't use the textbook, and we didn't
have homework. We just worked through the problems in class, the way the
people who originally figured them out did: by working from what we already
knew and making logical inferences.

Learning calculus from him was as much history as it was math, but the math
_stuck_. I really wish more math teachers taught that way.

~~~
ianai
My favorite math professor would ensure he taught to and beyond the homework.
He always had the toughest homework - but he managed to keep it accessible.
Then the tests were based on the same sort of questions and material - but
easier. Somehow most of my professors at that college got that mixture wrong.
They would seemingly get bored with the topics and decide to throw out
curveballs everywhere.

~~~
redthrowaway
I've had profs like that. What really struck me about Irani is that even
without the homework, even with only weekly quizzes, it still stuck. It wasn't
an AP class, but he encouraged us to write the AP exam at the end of the year
and nearly everyone got a 4 or a 5.

I do agree with the notion that profs are more effective when the homework is
harder than the exam, however. I had the exact opposite for a fourth-year
crypto class. For homework, we'd work through some basic cryptanalysis with
lots of hints. Then the test would come around, and two or three of the ten
questions would involve breaking a cypher, from scratch. I got about 25% on
the first test, which ended up being 65% after he scaled it. Brutal class.

~~~
ianai
It's a huge disservice to just destroy people's academic careers like that.

------
Jun8
The second chapter of the book _The Mathematical Experience_ has a hilarious
interview between a hypothetical pure mathematician working on "non-Rimenan
hypersquares" and a reporter who wants to do a piece on his work (pdf link,
starts on page 39:
[http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddoc...](http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9780817682941-c1.pdf)).
It demonstrates this exact issue.

~~~
mturmon
It is an extraordinary book. I've read and re-read it. Just a chunk from the
part you mentioned:

"He finds it difficult to establish meaningful conversation with that large
portion of humanity that has never heard of a non-Riemannian hypersquare. This
creates grave difficulties for him; there are two colleagues in his department
who know something about non-Riemannian hypersquares, but one of them is on
sabbatical, and the other is much more interested in non-Eulerian semirings."

------
peter303
Math's 'god particle' may be prime numbers. Though on the surface the concept
of prime numbers involves just integers and you can explain it to 8-year olds,
there are major unproven conjectures and deep allied mathematics. And now the
worlds digital banking system and private messages depends on special
properties of prime numbers [factorization].

~~~
popcorncolonel
That's just because we know very little about them. It very well could be the
case that factoring semiprimes might be ridiculously easy, but we are just too
dumb right now to figure out how to do it quickly (even if P != NP -- we
haven't even shown that factorization is NP complete).

------
quantum_state
Given the very structural nature of the Lie algebra, wonder if the work, or
part of it, can be automated and done by computers ... Enlightenment from any
experts would be appreciated.

------
Futurebot
Relatedly, "Mathematics for the non-mathematician" is a great book that talks
about the stories of math: history of how certain ideas, techniques, and
discoveries happened. Recommended to anyone that wants to learn / review math
in a more story-oriented way.

------
panic
The Atlas project itself has some interesting stuff, including a custom
programming language
([http://www.liegroups.org/software/documentation/atlasofliegr...](http://www.liegroups.org/software/documentation/atlasofliegroups-
docs/library/axis.html)) with parts written in literate C++ (e.g.
[https://github.com/jeffreyadams/atlasofliegroups/blob/master...](https://github.com/jeffreyadams/atlasofliegroups/blob/master/sources/interpreter/axis-
types.w))!

------
dkarapetyan
Even basic biological research has this problem. Anyone remember CRISPR? The
press ran with all sorts of analogies about laser-like precision to reprogram
genomes. Turns out it's not as laser-like as the press made it out to be.

Really the problem is writers and journalists who are not domain experts
trying to explain this stuff to laypeople. There is no requirement for story
writers to have been mathematicians or biologists when it comes to
popularizing so you end up with half-truths and outright lies.

------
mathgenius
The paper is here [1]. It begins with:

""" The purpose of this paper is to give a finite algorithm for computing the
set of irreducible unitary representations of a real reductive Lie group G.
Before explaining the nature of the algorithm, it is worth recalling why this
is an interesting question. A serious historical survey would go back at least
to the work of Fourier (which can be understood in terms of the irreducible
unitary representations of the circle). """

This work is also related to the "Langlands program", which is perhaps the
mathematician's version of a grand unified theory of mathematics.

[1] "Unitary representations of real reductive groups"
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.2192](https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.2192)

