Is It Elitist? Or Is It Paternalistic?

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I would love to understand this better, because I do know there are these examples, which are very provocative. But I don't understand how robust it is. Is it inevitable? Does it always happen? Or are we cherry picking examples where it happens? And I'm just not really sure. We've indulged ourselves a little bit of less practical mathematical speculation. To bring it back to close things up, you know, you have done an enormous amount for spreading the word of mathematics,. as it were, to a broad set of people.

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.

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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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