{"id":314,"date":"2013-09-23T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-09-23T13:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/?p=314"},"modified":"2013-09-23T03:31:45","modified_gmt":"2013-09-23T08:31:45","slug":"mathematicians-talk-really-they-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2013\/09\/23\/mathematicians-talk-really-they-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Mathematicians Talk (Really, they do)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We all know the joke: &#8220;What is the difference between an extroverted mathematician and an introverted one? The extroverted one looks at your shoes, rather than at his own shoes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Well, the interviews on<a title=\"Math Tango -- mathematical interviews and book reviews\" href=\"http:\/\/mathtango.blogspot.com\/\"> Math Tango<\/a> go a long ways towards dispelling this stereotype that we are conversationally challenged.\u00a0 &#8220;Shecky Riemann&#8221; (the pseudonym for the self-described Martin Gardner fan who maintains this blog as well as Math Frolic) has interviewed many eloquent mathematical people (see the list <a title=\"list of interviewees\" href=\"http:\/\/math-frolic.blogspot.com\/p\/blog-page.html\">here<\/a>). \u00a0 Some things I learned reading the interviews<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>(with Vicki Kearn) how she (an editor at Princeton University Press) goes about choosing mathematical titles and authors to work with.<\/li>\n<li>(with Dr. Colm Mulcahy) Richard Dawkins paid Martin Gardner a visit late in his life.<\/li>\n<li>(with Dr. Keith Devlin)\u00a0 Dr. Devlin has some strong opinions about the NSA.<\/li>\n<li>(with my co-blogger Evelyn Lamb) We both attribute our becoming mathematicians to taking an Inquiry-Based (Moore Method specifically) course!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_332\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mathforum.org\/mathimages\/index.php\/Cardioid\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-332\" class=\"size-full wp-image-332  \" alt=\"Cardioid Microphone -- Yes, you heard that right -- Math is used to amplify itself!\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/files\/2013\/09\/200px-Cardioid_mic21.jpg?resize=200%2C195\" width=\"200\" height=\"195\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-332\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cardioid Microphone &#8212; Yes, you heard that right &#8212; Math is used to amplify itself!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Shecky&#8217;s blog really focuses on the mathematics community&#8217;s relationship to the layman as he is not himself a mathematician, but is fascinated by math. This is reflected in his great posts concerning the role of skepticism in math as well as his reviews of mathematical books for the general public.<\/p>\n<p>But let&#8217;s not stop with the interviews here.\u00a0 A recent post on the <a href=\"http:\/\/aperiodical.com\/2013\/09\/ian-stewart-on-the-life-scientific\/\">aperiodical <\/a>features a\u00a0 link to a half-hour interview on the BBC radio program The Life Scientific with Ian Stewart, who is a great popularizer of mathematics.\u00a0 During the interview he attributes his doing well in math in great part to his mother&#8217;s looking out for him in school, and he answers the dreaded question &#8220;So&#8230; What was you PhD Thesis about?&#8221;.\u00a0 In the course of his answering the interviewer half-jokingly interrupts &#8220;It sounds like you just made all this up&#8221; referring to the abstractness of the ideas.\u00a0 That made me laugh because that&#8217;s exactly what I do &#8212; make things up!!<\/p>\n<p>And just to bring everything full circle, I was reminded that Ian Stewart inherited Martin Gardner&#8217;s Scientific American Column.\u00a0 So this post was really just all about Martin Gardner.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0 Incidentally, <a title=\"homepage for the events\" href=\"http:\/\/celebrationofmind.org\/home\">Martin Gardner Global Celebration of Mind<\/a> is quickly approaching on October 21st each year (Gardner&#8217;s birthday).\u00a0 Coincidentally, that is the day that I start my new job!\u00a0 Weird.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We all know the joke: &#8220;What is the difference between an extroverted mathematician and an introverted one? The extroverted one looks at your shoes, rather than at his own shoes.&#8221; Well, the interviews on Math Tango go a long ways &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2013\/09\/23\/mathematicians-talk-really-they-do\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" data-url=https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2013\/09\/23\/mathematicians-talk-really-they-do\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,18,9],"tags":[92,91,89,88,90,87],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people-in-math","category-publishing-in-math","category-recreational-mathematics","tag-biographical","tag-colm-mulcahy","tag-ian-stewart","tag-interviews","tag-keith-devlin","tag-martin-gardner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3tW3N-54","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}