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Ask Slashdot: Should More Math and Equations Be Used In the Popular Press?
raque writes "The NY Times recently published two op-eds in their Philosophy section, The Stone, discussing how Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle is abused. The second is a followup to the first. The author struggled to make clear his point and left the impression he was creating a strawman argument. In his followup he said he was avoiding equations because he was writing for a general audience. I replied to both articles, asking whether showing some basic equations would have worked better, allowing math to illustrate where metaphors struggled. Now I'm asking the same question to everyone on Slashdot. Would Dr. Callendar have been better off just diving in and dealing with Heisenberg and quantum mechanics using the tools that were developed for it?"
Probability that more maths equations should be used > 0
Without math, it's impossible to convey what you're trying to convey. The press is way too dumbed down already, and many times I've read science stories that are just plain misleading as they try to simplify the message.
Putting equations into news stories means that some people won't understand them, but most importantly it will encourage some of those people to investigate further, and learn how to read equations. If there's no math in the popular press in the first place, then there's no incentive for people to improve themselves.
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
Should articles be written with intelligence and nuance when writing for a "general audience"?
But they should start with adding footnotes with references first. Most popular science articles don't even mention their sources properly, which sometimes makes it really hard to follow up on them even if you are a scientist.
Everybody not willing to understand simple mathematics (with explanations) is being willfully ignorant. There is no way to reach such people, they would not comprehend the text either...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"The author notes that an editor warned him that for every equation in the book the readership would be halved, hence it includes only a single equation: E = mc2. Early in 1983, Hawking approached Simon Mitton, the editor in charge of astronomy books at Cambridge University Press, with his ideas for a popular book on cosmology. Mitton was doubtful about all the equations in the draft manuscript, which he felt would put off the buyers in airport bookshops that Hawking wished to reach. It was with some difficulty that he persuaded Hawking to drop all but one equation.[4] In addition to Hawking's notable abstention from presenting equations, the book also simplifies matters by means of illustrations throughout the text, depicting complex models and diagrams." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Time it may not be true as after all the book sold rather well.
They should start by using proper units. I know the USA is not metric, so they can use feet, miles and pounds, but football fields, states of delaware and volkswagens are not proper units. (and especially Library of Comgresses)
I've written lots of reports with math formulas (in Latex) where they are needed. Most, if not all, the intended readers have a Ph.D. in experimental physics or optics but I noticed that unless the math is really trivial, they will not follow. Even the slightest math supported reasoning will throw them off. That experience tells me that math for the general audience is probably not a good idea. It is simply pointless the be correct if you are not coming across. Who hears the tree falling in the forest.
The general rule regarding the depth of detail in publications should be that they need to be understandable by the target audience. If you write for the general public, then the base text should be layman style, with some pointers where to get more in-depth information for those, who are above the average and more knowledgeable in the specific field. If the target audience is academic and/or scientific community of a specific field, then that's a totally different matter, and the text should be as to-the-point and in-depth as possible, since anyone from the audience would be able to produce superficial treatment of a topic in their field, even if they are not utmost experts of the specific topic, and they'll require exact and deep elaboration of the subject to be able to judge the subtleties, novelties, benefits, etc. I'd say that's all, and it's really not 'rocket science', just spend some time getting to know who'll you'll address with your writing.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Why reawaken the horrible and traumatic memories of school? Well, unless you were like me who was always good at math. In my case, I would object to news stories containing more references to bullying and teasing. But I've forgiven my childhood bullies of all that. It was easy to do and I've since and I've forgotten most of it. Forgetting it was just as easy as forgetting where I buried their bodies after I took my revenge. *muahahahaha* Ok, I'll take my pills now.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
Absolutely not.
Wikipedia has already fallen prey to this. Articles on all these things are just dense reference manuals iseful only to graduates in their subjects rather than enlightening explanations.
They failed when those same people got full of themselves taking over the subject matter. They are as useless as a "man page" on regular expressions.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Equations are short hand and full of a form of jargon specific to a field, in terms of the arcane symbols used to represent a property or constant, with the explanation of what each symbol means buried in the text. They are great at condensing meaning, and allowing somebody familiar with them to manipulate them easily. But they are actually terrible at conveying meaning to someone not familiar with the field it is describing.
Often diagrams are the best way to explain mathematical concepts where possible. In the end, most scientist presents with a set of equations or concept to understand, will inevitably spend some time plotting out or trying to pictorially described what it means, to help understand it. So why not short circuit that?
Most of those who have studied advanced math have heard of the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, but not every single one of them understand it
Putting the same Heisenberg's Unvertainty Principle to the "average Joe on the street" and you would most probably get a blank stare
This has nothing to do with elitism, this is about reality
Most people simply do not have the mental capacity to comprehend the meaning of 1 + 1 = 2, and if you do not believe me, go ask the people around you, why 1 + 1 = 2, and not 1 + 1 = 3 ?
Give me a break. In the 1920s Einstein wrote a popular book about special relativity (with formulas) and general relativity for the layman. And we're talking about 2 theories which at the time were at the frontier of physics research. In the last 90 years we haven't suddenly become idiots, so if popular science books talking about special/general relativity and quantum theory (a theory 90 years old !!!!) don't use equations it is because of stupid preconceptions. I've said it before people are not idiots, they may not be specialists in physics research but you can certainly explain them the basics of 2 theories which are almost 1 century old using carefully selected formulas. Nobody goes apeshit if you write Newton's formula of gravitation, why would you go crazy for Heisenberg's uncertaintly principle ?
The cynic in me observes that in this country, every issue is expected to divide into 2 diametrically-opposed sides. Such as, for example, the party that eats their own babies which is the exact opposite of the party that eats everyone else's babies (yes, those are exact opposites and you can only chose one. Snarf).
Furthermore, in adherence to this post-Einstein Weltanschaung that everything should be as simple as possible, then made simpler, everything must be expressed in short sound-bytes suitable for framing on bumper stickers.
So shouldn't E=mc**2 be short enough? No, because statements like this require context. If you don't know what E, m, and c represent, it's just another math equation. And context won't fit on the bumper sticker.
I've actually had people tell me that no one but Einstein is smart enough to understand Einstein. The Gods themselves...
Are you suggesting that we hide maths entirely? Look, there are some things I maybe understand a little, many things I don't understand, and probably an infinite amount of things I don't know about. Just because I don't understand something doesn't mean you should hide the problem from me. If maths is the best way to understand something then it should be used. If an article refers to data or a paper then it should be referenced. If you hide things from me (lies to children?) then I have to repeat the work of others to come to the same result. That is called a waste of time.
You, and I, (if you and I exist) are in a situation where the supposed greatest minds of our race understand maybe 2% of the rules. Probably far less. Although it is far more comfortable to sit in frount of media, dealing in made up social structures, assuming that what I can see is real, pretending I know it all and living in a fantasy land. I would quite like to have an inkling of what I don't know. It makes me humble, and it makes me careful.
The map is not the terrain. The rules are not the reality. Shine me a torch to see. And if it is dark, tell me of the possibilty of light.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
Do you have an equation to back that law up?
...but /. doesn't support math markup.
Betteridge's Law of Headlines says no.
And at least in this particular case, "no" is indeed the correct answer. Equations can never be a substitute for actual understanding. You can use equations to develop understanding by starting from an earlier point and transform the initial equation to establish a new fact. But where do you start with quantum mechanics? "Quantum states are being represented by rays in a complex Hilbert space"?
If anything, equations can be used to create an argumentum ad auctoritatem, and I'm not sure that this is a good thing.
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Graphs are very helpful in really conveying what is going on. What we need more in discussions of politics is facts and many facts are about numbers. When discussing who has the right model of the US economy you really need to think of it scientifically. Each model is a hypothesis that needs to be tested. Economics is about aggregate behavior and so it's really a statistical statement. Yes the models are equations and those are nice to show too. But you need to show graphs. Folks who are not innumerate often prefer for example what Nate Silver put on fivethirtyeight.com to talking heads on TV who use neither equations or graphs. Many folks I know prefer Krugman's blog http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ to what makes it into his columns in the Times.
If you can't show pictures of aggregate behavior you can only tell stories. Those stories can tug at heart strings and motivate people to feel strongly about an issue without really understanding the whole picture. That's one of the problems with our political discourse.
Most people simply do not have the mental capacity to comprehend the meaning of 1 + 1 = 2
I work with integers modulo 2, you insensitive clod!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Indeed. It's also interesting to note that Einstein's original papers are eminently readable to the Layman, compared to the kind of papers we see in journals today. Perhaps that's due to the complexity of the mathematics now advanced at the bleeding edge, or perhaps it's because journals try to be even more economical with space than they used to be. I don't know.
In my experience, the concept of entropy gets abused a hell of a lot more than the Heisenburg uncertainty principle.
Most literate people could probably handle arithmetic, fractions, simple exponents, some basic geometry, and linear equations.
However, I would not expect a general-audience article to feature calculus, statistics (beyond references to the mean and median), complex algebra, differentials, etc. As in, everything past pre-algebra class is sketchy, at best.
But algebra beyond linear equations, any kind of complex geometry (beyond rote formulas), calculus, just about anything with a sigma symbol in it, etc. I'm a Computer Engineer, and I don't remember how to do any of that stuff. Format of an equation describing a parabola? Method for computing integrals? How to calculate Standard Deviation? I've forgotten it all; it was 15+ years ago, and has no relevance to my day-to-day life. I could probably pick it up again relatively quickly if I needed to (okay, except for calculus and linear/diffEq; I sucked at it even at the time), but yeah, my eyes would start glazing over any article that relied on my understanding of even moderately complex math.
But some learned wondrous things. And used that to go even deeper. Isn't that what education and learning is all about?
If it appeals to enough groups to stay in print, that's a fair number.;
Indeed. It's also interesting to note that Einstein's original papers are eminently readable to the Layman, compared to the kind of papers we see in journals today. Perhaps that's due to the complexity of the mathematics now advanced at the bleeding edge, or perhaps it's because journals try to be even more economical with space than they used to be. I don't know.
Be careful, they seem readable but they're full of subtilities (and in some places even contain errors) especially his 1905 article on the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.
And furthermore while they "are" readable to today's audiences because we have almost a century dealing with special relativistic phenomena (it has even entered popular culture) it was not so at the time.
Take that into account.
An introduction to Calculus from an MIT video series.
The first video requires so much previous knowledge to follow. The average person would have no idea what they were saying. And this is "Introductory" to the basics for what is being discussed in the article.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
After the revolution, the moderates like you will be first against the wall.
The paper on special relativity is fairly readable. The general relativity paper is practically illegible to the layman, requiring tensor mathematics that are usually not taught until the later stages of a physics degree.
He did, however, try to make it more generally accessible, at least to the determined student. This paper is pretty amazing:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Foundation_of_the_Generalised_Theory_of_Relativity
I disagree. Some math concepts are deep, but not Pythagoras. Probably the top 5% of high school graduates understand it, and the only reason the majority of the other 95% don't is that they haven't really tried enough. You really can't understand this animated GIF?
You're talking about mathematicians, who have decided that they will be devoted working with math more than any other field, and you think they don't understand? I can't imagine a single mathematician who can't understand Pythagoras.
And long division -- you don't understand why the numbers line up? How it works? I certainly look down on you for not understanding at this moment, but even then I bet if you thought about it for a bit, you'd understand. It's the decimal system -- meaning that the four digits ABCD represent Ax1000 + Bx100 + Cx10 + D -- and the distributive property of multiplication/division over addition/subtraction.
I can't imagine anyone STARTING to learn to become a mathematician without understanding long division (yes, I mean really grasping it, not just how to write the numbers), much less having become a mathematician.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
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