The Great Geek Manual

So, a few weeks back, I received an advance review copy of The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette on my doorstep out of the blue.

My first though was “Who is this woman was, and why is she sending calculus texts to my door?” Followed closely by “What did I ever do to her?” I mean, I’m pretty sure that if Jennifer Ouellette received a box full of something frightening like, say snakes, out of the blue from me, there would probably be handcuffs involved at some point down the line. Mind you, these would have to be very dull snakes for the calculus metaphor to work – maybe just some very menacing worms, but there’s a principal involved here. Civilized people just do not menace other civilized people with calculus. We save that for savages and school children. It’s in the Geneva convention.

As it turns out, the book was pretty good, once I got past the “calculus” in the title. As to who this Jennifer Ouellette is and why she sends math homework to innocent bloggers, it turns out that Penguin included an interview for reviewers to excerpt. After browsing through it, I thought I’d share a bit here.

What was the major factor in deciding to undertake your quest to understand calculus?

I don’t think it was any one factor, more of a gradual realization that this might be a topic that was far interesting as an adult than I’d presumed back in high school. We all have gaps in our broad base of knowledge, and while I am far more scientifically literate than the average American, I am woefully ignorant about math. Sure, I can balance my checkbook and manage my personal finances, even figure out basic percentages, but that’s just basic arithmetic. There were a number of baby steps along the way to soften my kneejerk resistance to all things math. But as far as writing the book is concerned, the turning point came while browsing the website of The Teaching Company, which specializes in videotaping courses for the general public on everything from economics and history, to philosophy, literature and, yes, science and math. I realized I could be a while lot mathier. Impulsively, I ordered the DVD course on “Change and Motion: Calculus Made Clear,” taught by Michael Starbird, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin.

I think that scientists have a valid point when they bemoan the fact that it’s okay in our culture to be ignorant of math, whereas it’s no okay to be illiterate. We don’t all need to be math whizzes, but we should have some understanding of where math (including calculus) fits into the intellectual framework, why it’s important, what the basic underlying concepts are, and, if possible, be able to struggle through the odd simple equation in a pinch. People do understand this at some level: witness the enormous success of the TV series Numb3rs, which ought not to have survived past the pilot episode if people truly didn’t care about math. Most of us just don’t resonate well to how the subject is traditionally taught. Our brains don’t work that way. But make it relevant to us in some tangible way, and we become far less resistant, even genuinely interested. At least that was my experience.

What do you wish you knew in high school?

That failing is not that scary; in fact, it’s a critical part of the learning process. I was such a perfectionist as a teenager, so terrified of doing the wrong thing, or of getting the wrong answer, and because math didn’t come as easily to me as other subjects, I just assumed I lacked the ability to excel at it – despite getting top grades in the high school math classes I did take. Deep down, I knew I didn’t fully grasp why I was plugging in number; I was just blindly following the established rules. So I felt I didn’t deserve the good grades, and that colored my attitude towards math as an adult, and my confidence (or lack thereof) in my own ability. Many of the people I spoke to about their dislike of math mentioned that it started when they failed at their first attempt at algebra, for example – and that failure shattered their confidence. If we all had healthier attitudes towards failure, maybe fewer high school students woud develop such a profound dislike of math.

What is the one thing you now see in everyday life that you didn’t notice before starting The Calculus Diaries?

The world is filled with hidden connections and recurring patterns. Math describes nature at a very fundamental level and those underlying patterns are mostly invisible to those who don’t speak the language of Nature. For instance, I never realized that an exponential decay curve can describe the rate at which a cup of coffee cools, or the rate at which wet clothing dries, as well as certain processes in astronomy, economics and even population dynamics. Those seemingly very different things nonetheless are related mathematically; if you don’t “speak math,” or at least have a conceptual understanding of how it works, it’s much more difficult to see those connections. And yet they are there!

How do you feel your English major background colored your view of math and science?

I definitely approach math and science from a narrative perspective; for me, it’s all about storytelling. I get excited to write a particular article, or book, because I think the topic is really cool and I want to share that excitement with others – I want to tell that story. So I tend to focus on the concepts, the personalities / characters, and the historical and cultural contexts, not just the technical details. That’s what appealed to me about calculus: once I started delving into the subject, I found all these colorful historical figures and anecdotes to liven up what most of us consider a very dry subject. Understanding the history of how calculus evolved over two thousand years helped me understand it better, and hopefully convey some of the understanding to the reader.

You are the director of The Science & Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences that provides entertainment industry professionals with access to scientists and engineers. What are some projects you and your colleagues have been a part of?

The Exchange is a program of the National Academy of Science; I like to think of it as a cultural exchange program for science and Hollywood, since we not only match writers, producers, directors, etc. with scientists who have the expertise they need, but we also sponsor special “mixer” events, like in-home salons and screenings / panel discussions. It’s amazing to watch the creativity and innovation that happens when you put these two seemingly different groups of people together in a room and let them brainstorm together. For instance, we introduced Caltech physicist Mark Wise to the producers of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 2. That scene where Tony Stark builds his own particle accelerator to create a new element? Mark worked with them on that, to find just the right balance between science fact and science fiction to produce a great piece of entertainment. We’ve also brought in scientists for Watchmen, Thor, and Tron: Legacy, and answered technical questions for such shows as Fringe, Bones, The Big Bang Theory, Caprica, and Castle, among others. My personal favorite event – so far – was a screening of George Romero’s new film Survival of the Dead around Halloween, with Romero sitting on a panel after the film with two scientists to talk about the science of the zombie brain, and mathematical modeling of the spread of a zombie plague. And yes, I used some of that discussion as fodder in The Calculus Diaries.

Make sure to check out Ouellette’s physics blog, Twisted Physics, and become a fan of The Calculus Diaries on Facebook.