Angela Vichitbandha - Assignment 5

I do not try to push conversations about math onto people who really do not want it. Chances are, no matter how fascinating I find the topic, they will not be swayed by my ramble about its beauty and both of us will probably just be sad afterwards. I do talk about math with people not particularly into the field, however, since that is my entire family and a good portion of my friends. I try to talk about the weird, interesting bits of math rooted in simple, intuitive logic because they tend to be easiest to explain and understand, yet attention grabbing. I also frequently talk about how math is hard to understand and do, even if you are “good” at it, to try to destroy the notion that math is something some people are just naturally good at and everyone else might as well give up.

It seems like these small conversations could not possibly affect something as large as national investment in math, yet I think it does. I have found that, while being good at math is considered important (especially since it is rather vital in the STE parts of STEM, which are often consider some of the most important fields), actually liking math is considered weird. This is baffling and almost certainly an unhealthy societal view. In addition, higher level math is also just a mystery to most people; the idea that math is barely starting by the time you finish an elementary calculus sequence does not really occur to most people, even those deep within the sciences for example. Often, when I read about math communication, there is a line about “math research is not calculating ever larger sums.” Of course, most math research comes out of these largely foreign area of math, not from absurd arithmetic, but most people are already set on what “math” is by the time they are in their mid-teens since it is something they have been doing since they were around three.

Increasing awareness, especially among young people, that math exists far beyond what is normally taught in schools (and that struggling with it does not make you inherently bad at itl) is vital for funding and policy reasons and for getting potential future mathematicians in the door. We need to be proactive about these things, even if it is primarily through small actions like exposing those we come in contact with to the reasons we find math fascinating and worth while. I know UK has several math outreach programs targeted towards local schools (and even some statewide programs) and I think it is primarily through efforts like this that we can bring positive interest into the field.