CAM Colloquium: Steven Strogatz (Cornell) - Writing about math for the New York Times-720

Friday, February 7, 2014 at 3:30pm Frank H. T. Rhodes Hall, 655 CAM Colloquium: Steven Strogatz (Cornell) - Writing about math for the New York Times From February to May 2010, I wrote a weekly online column about math for the Opinionator section of nytimes.com. As any of us who've tried to communicate with the public have found, explaining math to a general audience presents a lot of challenges. What topics should be covered or excluded? Who is the audience? What's the right balance among history, applications, ideas, proofs, and puzzles? I don't claim to have the answers, but in this lecture -- which I hope will be very interactive, with a great deal of lively discussion -- we'll consider the pros and cons of various choices. I'll also tell a few behind-the-scenes stories about what the experience was like.