Mindscape 216 | John Allen Paulos on Numbers, Narratives, and Numeracy

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Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
People have a complicated relationship to mathematics. We all use it in our everyday lives, from calculating a tip at a restaurant to estimating the probability of some future event. But many people find the subject intimidating, if not off-putting. John Allen Paulos has long been working to make mathematics more approachable and encourage people to become more numerate. We talk about how people think about math, what kinds of math they should know, and the role of stories and narrative to make math come alive.
John Allen Paulos received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is currently a professor of mathematics at Temple University. He s a bestselling author, and frequent contributor to publications such as ABCNews.com, the Guardian, and Scientific American. Among his awards are the Science Communication award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Mathematics Communication Award from the Joint Policy Board of Mathematics. His new book is Who’s Counting? Uniting Numbers and Narratives with Stories from Pop Culture, Puzzles, Politics, and More.
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[@orthoplex64]

I'm so glad you mentioned the way that descriptions of the Monty Hall problem are often missing crucial detials. It's irritating when that happens!

[@nuriagiralt617]

Yes! As someone who has been teaching stats for 17 years, I couldn't agree more. Thank you!

[@mrglassscience]

When it comes to understanding more and more complicated equations, for me the problem is not really of degree, but rather comprehension of why I'm doing the things the equations demand. For example, in your description of Einstein's equation, you do a little of the work to explain what a matrix is doing in math. But I've never really been taught why it does what it needs to do in the equation. My teachers only ever told me, "here's this tool that does this thing, now use it", and that is where I'm lost. I'm not going to be comfortable using matrices until I understand exactly what it's doing to the numbers and why. That is a whole other lesson. And that's just one part of the math in Einstein's equation. A lot of us have teachers who just said, "do this", and that ruins the motivation to apply those concepts to new math. I don't think it's fair to say that I don't want to do the work. I think it also needs to be said that the teachers don't want to do all the work either.

[@maisboyfriend]

wonderful explanation. I feel quite similarly.

[@tonytanner3048]

The problem is that most theoretical! physics programs do not include enough mathematical rigour to gain intuition underlying modern physics. Things like GR cannot fully be appreciated without solid grasp of differential geometry.

[@stargazer8718]

I really enjoy the speaking style this guy has! I'm fascinated with mathematics but feel completely stupid here in college. Will find more material with this man. Thanks so much for sharing. Btw, fear of maths has followed me from childhood to adulthood. It still haunts me every week. I believe if you don't learn to like it at young age, chances are you never will. Family and friends have a huge impact on how you turn out as an adult...

[@prikarsartam]

all that matters is how you want yourself to be. If you want to 'not fear math', it can still be possible - ONLY IF YOU WISH TO.

[@trevorcrowley5748]

I agree with you. The good news is that if you think about math every week, you likely have what it takes to overcome your initial conditions. Suggest you start with what intrigues you in the real world. Then follow it to the math that describes it. You will then be captivated by the beauty.

[@tookie36]

Great episode 🎃

[@LeeLightfoot]

It gets exciting at 52 minutes as I've listened to recurring narratives recently on the potentially random walk nature of a computational universe.

[@derschutz4737]

It would be nice to see you bring a mathematician to explain ramsey theory more.

[@LeeLightfoot]

primitive man did not need probability for a rustling bush...but the "hedging" (pardon the pun) of population dynamics does require a statistical spread of individuals, some of whom forego a reward to eliminate risk and others whose threshold / tolerance for threat is higher in order to secure the higher reward payoff. The one phenomena indicating a probability to early man would be innate "subidisation", which would quickly tell him, without skill in numerosity, that one route open to him had the higher probability of success or extinction, based on the gestalt quantical estimate of predators and/ or prey.

[@LeeLightfoot]

Politicians should not need to solve quadratic equations...but there should be a moratorium on any media commentator using the word "epidemic" (or any word indicating a metric) without any knowledge of the numbers.

[@HarryNicNicholas]

38:27 interesting argument, i've argued that when adoption is mentioned as an alternative, i ask, how many babies would you be willing to adopt, cos after 1 or 2, or 5 or 6, it becomes a question of finance over morality and pro lifers now are in the same boat as pro choice.

[@pizzacrusher4632]

Mr. Burns?!?

[@Flum666]

Maths, it's short for mathematics, notice the s in the end

[@steve112285]

Econ is short for economics. Notice the lack of an s on the end :P

[@Flum666]

@@steve112285 english, do you speak it?

[@Rob81k]

Next time, send your guest a proper mic.

[@maxpower3418]

I had no idea beatlejuce was so smart.

[@FAAMS1]

"Stories" or better put confabulations are essential summary's purposed for people to cope with the unknown...stories are a common sense daily oral tool that expresses through local culture the wisdom of the common folk through the aeons in the process of adaptation!

[@FAAMS1]

Universal attractors are not a "no matter what" regarding the emergence of order....

[@FAAMS1]

@@karagi101 do you have anything to elaborate upon or are you just pissing on a tree? I am not a Physicist nor do I need to be to make relevant questions...now if you have anything to say say it or just go piss elsewhere ignoramus!

[@FAAMS1]

@@karagi101 More if you have a fundamental proof that the Universe is random rather then pseudo random then by all means publish it! There is nothing worse then a monkey with a calculator that does not understand concepts nor is willing to deal with axioms!

[@FAAMS1]

@@karagi101 I question the pseudo concept of pure Randomness you idiot nasty piece of s***t! As for my remarks en passent they occurred each at a time as the dialogue unfolded...reshaping the IQ distribution on the bell curve is idiotic...thinking that you can teach a dog to speak is idiotic....people cannot mind statistical averages in their life for more then 5 minutes...they are victims of an abusive Industry, because they ARE idiotic...you and your pseudo "inner" understanding of the subject is patently idiotic! Now please get your pot shot meaningless empty bag of vague criticism with argument ad authority and go bother another idiot like you because I don't want to waste a single extra neuron talking with a monkey that thinks he is smart! Oh the irony!

[@FAAMS1]

@@karagi101 The concept of Pure Randomness is unfalsifiable as you would require the epistemic set to be as big as the ontological set to demonstrate it. Fair dice and fair coin tosses are already out of the box of randomizers with robotics and super computers and radioactive decay and the stupid standard model in QM are next...

[@FAAMS1]

Yes Gödel's Incompleteness can bring some degree of humbleness to otherwise common but literate people who think much of their knowledge, specially in Science...there is a diference between a Lab rat and a thinker! By the way Cantor is wrong, Infinity is not a number and as a process it is uncountable by definition! The diagonal argument is a mirage!

[@FAAMS1]

If people would know probability better we would have an economic recession...and much of the consumer industry would go bankrupt!

[@MrPDTaylor]

First

[@FAAMS1]

On critical thinking people prefer exceptions to the norm...this is why soap operas are successful...if people were more realistic in their critical thinking the number of depressions would sky rise!

[@FAAMS1]

It is not just elitist or paternalistic but essentially naive to think you can reshape the bell curve!

[@FAAMS1]

Kill the empty set and I will learn more mathematics!

[@marct8160]

I'm listening on my knees in Unganda pls stop pretending you know WTF is going on ...do your talk