Question
How can mathematics be marketed better?
Answer
How would you market a deep immersion into Zen practice? A month-long retreat at a monastery? Take those ideas, and substitute math. Because that is what it is. A sort of spiritual practice. And trust me, young kids will get it. The essence of math does not require Barney the dinosaur to speak to even very young kids.
If I had to make a TV ad to promote math, here's the script I'd do.
I'd show two kids... maybe 14-15 years old, in a somewhat dark, silent room, listening to say Bach in the background at low volume, meditatively and calmly doing math on pen and paper on their austere desk with nothing except pen, paper and a table lamp. They are dressed normally... neither outlandishly geeky with pocket protectors and thick glasses, nor fake cool/handsome/beautiful. But there is a Jedi look about them. Their faces have the sort of deeply absorbed and lost look that tells you they are mentally in a different universe.
This goes on for 30 seconds and then one of them leans back, smiles, swivels in his/her chair and silently hands a piece of paper to the other one. The other one quietly says, "Wow!" Both lean back for a couple of seconds of silence. Then one of them says, "I need a drink."
Then they step outside their room and head to the kitchen to grab a couple of drinks. A bunch of "normal" teenagers with some younger kids in tow (younger siblings perhaps) files past. They are having a party. They are laughing and joking. One of them says, "Hey, where were you guys? Come on join the party! We just ordered pizza!"
One of the two replies in a friendly but oddly calm/monk-like manner, rather than the bubbly manner of typical teens, "We're in the middle of something, but we'll stop by later. Save us a couple of slices." The group's laughter dies down a bit uncertainly, one of them mumbles "err... sure," and they file out, a bit uncomfortably. A couple of them turn around and do a thoughtful, but uncomprehending, slightly troubled double take. They sense they are in the presence of mystery, but cannot fathom it.
As they are leaving, one of the young kids, maybe 7-8, lingers and asks, "can I hang out with you guys? I'll be quiet." He has the look of a young Jedi Padawan. One of the two older kids says, "Okay, do you have a pen and paper in your backpack?"
The three file out together. Caption flashes across the scene: "Math. Are you ready?"
fin
(where's my Oscar?)
Mathematics is not "fun" and people who become bewitched and enthralled by the subject are not "normal" and frankly, usually have no wish to be normal. Their brains are literally different. Here's some recent research about this:
http://eideneurolearningblog.blo...
And it is important not to minimize genetic predisposition. Math is one of the few subjects where, undeniably, prodigies do exist. It is not nurture. It is not 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. It is a raw, direct connection to mathematical intuition that "normal" people possess to a far weaker degree. Anything that hurts our ability to find and nurture these people is probably a bad idea.
Any marketing approach that fails to take into account the essential nature of mathematics, as experienced by those who are naturally drawn to it, is doomed to fail. It will seem weak and anemic.
Mathematics is beautiful, yes. Awe-inspiring, yes. A kind of meditative practice, yes. Something that allows you to shed your sense of being merely human and participate in the austere symmetries and unsettling mysteries of the universe, yes. A way to tap into the raw essence of thought and being, yes. Something that can on occasion even bring tears to your eyes, yes. Something that can terrify you sometimes with the profundity of what it reveals, yes.
"Fun," in the sense of toys and jokes, no. Fun as in laughing and partying around with your friends, no. "Fun" as in going to a bar with your buddies, no. Fun as in sock-puppets and YouTube videos of sleepy kittens and laughing babies, no.
Even when social, it is mainly about silence, solitude, a shared sense of being initiates to a very privileged group, and deep absorption.
If you are thinking in terms of a teen movie where the math geek uses math to beat up the jock, save the world, win the girl and redemption, you are basically insulting math, missing the point, and missing the raw passion it represents.
Math is one of the few paths open to us to get beyond such tepid human dramas and participate in something grander.
That mystery, passion and spiritual magnetism exerted by math is what must form the core of any attempt to market it. Anything else will inevitably seem lame.
For the record, I think that the show NUMB3RS is godawful and exactly the wrong way to market math. Movies like A Beautiful Mind, and to some extent Good Will Hunting do it much better.
If I had to make a TV ad to promote math, here's the script I'd do.
I'd show two kids... maybe 14-15 years old, in a somewhat dark, silent room, listening to say Bach in the background at low volume, meditatively and calmly doing math on pen and paper on their austere desk with nothing except pen, paper and a table lamp. They are dressed normally... neither outlandishly geeky with pocket protectors and thick glasses, nor fake cool/handsome/beautiful. But there is a Jedi look about them. Their faces have the sort of deeply absorbed and lost look that tells you they are mentally in a different universe.
This goes on for 30 seconds and then one of them leans back, smiles, swivels in his/her chair and silently hands a piece of paper to the other one. The other one quietly says, "Wow!" Both lean back for a couple of seconds of silence. Then one of them says, "I need a drink."
Then they step outside their room and head to the kitchen to grab a couple of drinks. A bunch of "normal" teenagers with some younger kids in tow (younger siblings perhaps) files past. They are having a party. They are laughing and joking. One of them says, "Hey, where were you guys? Come on join the party! We just ordered pizza!"
One of the two replies in a friendly but oddly calm/monk-like manner, rather than the bubbly manner of typical teens, "We're in the middle of something, but we'll stop by later. Save us a couple of slices." The group's laughter dies down a bit uncertainly, one of them mumbles "err... sure," and they file out, a bit uncomfortably. A couple of them turn around and do a thoughtful, but uncomprehending, slightly troubled double take. They sense they are in the presence of mystery, but cannot fathom it.
As they are leaving, one of the young kids, maybe 7-8, lingers and asks, "can I hang out with you guys? I'll be quiet." He has the look of a young Jedi Padawan. One of the two older kids says, "Okay, do you have a pen and paper in your backpack?"
The three file out together. Caption flashes across the scene: "Math. Are you ready?"
fin
(where's my Oscar?)
Mathematics is not "fun" and people who become bewitched and enthralled by the subject are not "normal" and frankly, usually have no wish to be normal. Their brains are literally different. Here's some recent research about this:
http://eideneurolearningblog.blo...
And it is important not to minimize genetic predisposition. Math is one of the few subjects where, undeniably, prodigies do exist. It is not nurture. It is not 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. It is a raw, direct connection to mathematical intuition that "normal" people possess to a far weaker degree. Anything that hurts our ability to find and nurture these people is probably a bad idea.
Any marketing approach that fails to take into account the essential nature of mathematics, as experienced by those who are naturally drawn to it, is doomed to fail. It will seem weak and anemic.
Mathematics is beautiful, yes. Awe-inspiring, yes. A kind of meditative practice, yes. Something that allows you to shed your sense of being merely human and participate in the austere symmetries and unsettling mysteries of the universe, yes. A way to tap into the raw essence of thought and being, yes. Something that can on occasion even bring tears to your eyes, yes. Something that can terrify you sometimes with the profundity of what it reveals, yes.
"Fun," in the sense of toys and jokes, no. Fun as in laughing and partying around with your friends, no. "Fun" as in going to a bar with your buddies, no. Fun as in sock-puppets and YouTube videos of sleepy kittens and laughing babies, no.
Even when social, it is mainly about silence, solitude, a shared sense of being initiates to a very privileged group, and deep absorption.
If you are thinking in terms of a teen movie where the math geek uses math to beat up the jock, save the world, win the girl and redemption, you are basically insulting math, missing the point, and missing the raw passion it represents.
Math is one of the few paths open to us to get beyond such tepid human dramas and participate in something grander.
That mystery, passion and spiritual magnetism exerted by math is what must form the core of any attempt to market it. Anything else will inevitably seem lame.
For the record, I think that the show NUMB3RS is godawful and exactly the wrong way to market math. Movies like A Beautiful Mind, and to some extent Good Will Hunting do it much better.