Do the math

Some of the conference attendees — professors at large universities, in particular — do their own research but also teach large entry-level math courses. When these professors meet, they inevitably commiserate about their supremely checked-out students. One professor from the State University of New York at Potsdam talked about his various strategies for getting students to stop texting in class. (He used to just ask them to stop, but they would protest — one girl: “No, it’s OK, I’m just texting with my mother!”) A professor from Purdue talked about how, a week before the final exam, one student walked into her office and asked what he needed to do to bring his current F up to a C. When she answered along the lines of, “Turn in all the assignments you skipped, and get at least half the points on the final,” he rejected this as asking for too much.

Despite such anecdotes, the subtext of these professors’ stories wasn’t what you might expect. First, it wasn’t that the kids were just plain stupid: Maybe now and then a student wasn’t so bright — uncomfortable truth — but that wasn’t the point. Nor was there a sense of superiority: Maybe the kids were philistines because they didn’t want to learn math, but that wasn’t the point either. Rather, the tone was good humor tinged with despondency. The mathematicians were sad that their students weren’t experiencing the same happiness from math that they themselves so often knew.

I’m sure every teacher feels this now and again — imagine an English professor having a devil of a time getting his apathetic students to care about great books — but from what I can tell, mathematicians face this problem more often than others. Even some of math’s sister disciplines don’t seem to appreciate it. Consider, for instance, an ECO 100 lecture, where so much apology is made whenever the smallest bit of algebra must (alas!) make an appearance. Imagine the same professor apologizing for bringing in some political theory— unheard of. But with math, there’s a presumed aversion. The most common response I get when people ask me my major and hear that it’s math is: “Oh, I hate math. You must be brilliant, though.” Imagine a similar response for history or biology. Strange, right? But not with math: It’s taken as gospel that hating math is fine, and that only geniuses have the mettle to do math anyway.

Mathematicians would dispute both claims. People do theoretical math because they like theoretical math, and people like theoretical math because it’s special among the liberal arts. While literature might seek to unearth subtle truths about the human condition, these truths are inevitably hard to pin down. (After all, that’s what makes life interesting.) But with math, there’s an otherworldly austerity to the objects of study: A given pattern is true, or it isn’t; permanently, or not. Math offers little insight into the human condition; rather, math is “out there,” awaiting discovery. Thinking about such things, not to sound too poetic, is crazy cool. And with the right attitude and environment — studies have shown! — just about anyone can do it.

Therefore, mathematicians would say, not only can most people study math, but most people’s lives can be enriched by doing so. These mathematicians face not so much a counterargument as an unspoken, opposed mindset — which is a much more formidable foe. So what can be done?

For starters, our own math department is providing more opportunities to would-be math dabblers. There’s a course this semester, MAT 190: The Magic of Numbers, which is aimed at introducing some of the “intriguing and beautiful mathematics that underlie the arts, technology and everyday life,” according to the official course description. It’s taught by an eminent mathematician, and the lectures are very good. However, any course titled “The Magic of Numbers” might as well be titled “Blow-Off QR Over Here!” Most of the people I know in the class are spacing out rather than tuning in. This is an admirable attempt to show some non-majors what makes math so dear to mathematicians, but it needs some tweaking.

The basic idea is right: We don’t need to get everyone to major in math, but we do stand to gain from giving everyone a better appreciation of math. If the University continues to offer good math classes aimed at shedding some light on just what is so great about math — just as many chemistry majors know, on some level, what is so great about poetry — and if we, the students, take such courses, and take them more-or-less seriously, then we’ll be well on our way to a mathematically literate populace. This is, no doubt, good for government, industry and the like — but, as any mathematician will tell you, it’s good for the soul, too.

Greg Burnham is a math major from Memphis, Tenn. He can be reached at gburnham@princeton.edu.