Okay we have this stereotypical view of mathematicians and math. It’s nerdy right? And it’s only a discipline that you have to be a white-haired man who can endlessly drone about at a chalkboard spending 50 minutes putting whole lecture halls of young adults to sleep (regardless of the time of day) showing the brilliance of how an equation was derived. Self-licking ice cream cone much?
Well that’s not Hannah Fry. She’s a rising star in popularizing mathematics and is only 37!!!
What do we know about Hannah?? From somewhere on the internetz, “Dr. Fry is a mathematician, public persona and just an all around badass!”
She is British and of Irish descent. And smart as a whip and can speak and hold people’s attention despite her subject matter… math!! And she’s a Mom too!
Who says you can’t have your “The Art of Statistics, Learning From Data,” by renowned statistician David Spiegelhalter, swaddle your newborn against your chest and have your cake and eat it too??? No one! No one says that because that would just be a f-ing ridiculous thing to say. Geez, peoplez!!
Dr. Fry works for the University College of London. Hello Department of the Redundancy Department!! London Calling, we want our good grammar back with your “University College” naming and all!! Queen’s English… geez!!!
And she wrote some books and shit. Don’t believe me? I mean she’s done a whole lot of shit by age 37. I know, it makes us tired, or at least me, and makes me feel like… well what have I done with my life by age 52???!! That’s just negative thinking though and not what we are about here with the good thingz!!!
Fry has written three books. The first, The Mathematics of Love: Patterns, Proofs, and the Search for the Ultimate Equation (2015), includes the “37% rule”, a form of the secretary problem according to which roughly the first third of any potential partners should be rejected. The second, The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus (2016), co-authored with fellow mathematician Thomas Oléron Evans), discusses various Christmas-related topics and how mathematics can be involved in them, including a fair Secret Santa, decoration of Christmas trees, winning at Monopoly, and comparing the vocabulary of the Queen’s Christmas message to Snoop Dogg. Her third book is Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms (2018) (retitled, and reprinted, in the same year, as Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine), which looks at the impact of algorithms that affect lives.
Sure you say, when was math ever fun? Have you solved for X in a proportional equation to find something you need for every day life? Now that is fun!!!
Dr. Hannah Fry. Smart, beautiful, relatable. Patterns of human behavior through a mathematic lens. Relating science to everyday life.
Good things!!
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