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(BUTTON) Search with google * Make a contribution * Subscribe * (BUTTON) International edition + switch to the UK edition + switch to the US edition + switch to the Australia edition * Search jobs * Dating * Holidays * Digital Archive * Discount Codes * The Guardian app * Video * Podcasts * Pictures * Newsletters * Today's paper * Inside the Guardian * The Observer * Guardian Weekly * Crosswords * Facebook * Twitter * Search jobs * Dating * Holidays * Digital Archive * Discount Codes * Education * Schools * Teachers * Universities * Students (BUTTON) More Opinion Mathematics Geek + nerd = ? Mathematics is a despised subject - and yet modern life depends on it and several of the world's richest people are mathematicians Ian Stewart Mon 19 May 2008 14.30 BST First published on Mon 19 May 2008 14.30 BST * Share on Facebook * Share on Twitter * Share via Email Recent research shows that many young people are rejecting mathematics because of widespread ignorance of the true nature of the subject and its practitioners. They blame popular culture for presenting a geeky and stereotyped image of mathematics. Stereotypes, once established, are very hard to change. Most Americans still think that London's air is thick with smog - no, the Clean Air Act of 1956 put paid to that. So once the unwashed masses decided that mathematics is only done by balding middle-aged white men, devoid of social skills and hovering on the edge of madness, that it is little more than routine arithmetic (though no doubt using big numbers), that its only utility is to baffle innocent children, and that the only job you can get with it is to teach the stuff to those same children, that perception may as well have been carved in stone. The media image of mathematicians does sometimes promote these views. John Nash, the subject of A Beautiful Mind, suffered from schizophrenia for much of his life. Paul Erdös, "The Man who Loved Only Numbers", never had a permanent job, never owned a house, and did mathematics 16 hours a day. But most mathematicians lead normal family lives and have the usual social skills. They play sports - one of my colleagues does hang-gliding - and they can be entirely practical. If anything, the image of mathematics in popular culture has actually improved over the last 20 years. The film Good Will Hunting was a sympathetic treatment of the problems of a talented young mathematician. The book version of Jurassic Park went further: the main protagonist, Ian Malcolm, is a mathematician working in chaos theory, one of a new generation who behaved more like rock stars than academics. Most of this disappeared in the movie, mind you. Then there's Numb3rs, about a mathematician working for the FBI. The real problem, I suspect, is not confined to mathematics. The words "geek" and "nerd" were both coined in the USA, where they reflect a general tendency to despise all types of intellectual activity. Any interest other than television or sport is viewed as weird, be it collecting fossils or writing poetry. And when children encounter something difficult at school - such as mathematics - a natural defence mechanism comes into play. It is much easier to denigrate the topic, and make fun of the students who can handle it, than it is to admit to your own inadequacy. The obvious way to combat the stereotype is to point out how stupid it is. There are female mathematicians and black mathematicians, young mathematicians and old mathematicians. There are Chinese mathematicians and African mathematicians. People simply do not realise the extent to which their daily lives rely on mathematics. Mobile phones, the internet, sat-nav, fancy graphics in computer games and movies, the design of passenger jets, airline schedules, even the food we eat, are totally dependent on huge quantities of mathematics. Most of it is new, very little of it is remotely like the "maths" taught in school, and all of it is vital. The range of professions available to mathematicians is astonishingly broad, and teaching is low on the list. The financial sector is near the top. A survey of ex-students from Warwick university found that mathematicians had the highest average earnings of any degree subject. Several of the world's richest people are mathematicians; Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of the internet search engine Google (which works because of some clever mathematics) are both multibillionaires. If mathematicians were like lawyers, charging a fee for every time mathematics was used, we'd all be multibillionaires. But we're too generous, we give our ideas away, free. So nobody appreciates them. Our world has become inordinately complex, with even the simplest things resting on immensely technical discoveries and methods. It is so much easier to accept these things as some kind of "magic" than to appreciate the intellectual effort that goes into them, simpler to call something "geeky" than to admit that you don't understand it. Can we combat this lack of awareness? Yes, but only to a limited extent. And we have to do it across all social fronts, not just within popular culture - which is a reflection of public ignorance, not its cause. Topics * Mathematics * Opinion * comment * Share on Facebook * Share on Twitter * Share via Email * Share on LinkedIn * Share on Pinterest * Share on WhatsApp * Share on Messenger * Reuse this content View all comments > (BUTTON) Order by * (BUTTON) newest * (BUTTON) oldest * (BUTTON) recommendations (BUTTON) Show 25 * (BUTTON) 25 * (BUTTON) 50 * (BUTTON) 100 * (BUTTON) All (BUTTON) Threads * (BUTTON) collapsed * (BUTTON) expanded * (BUTTON) unthreaded Loading comments… Trouble loading? 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