讲故事与叙事2017fivethirtyeight.com
数学与其他科学在讲故事方式上的不对称
The asymmetry in storytelling between math and the other sciences
导读
文章探讨数学与其他科学在讲故事方面的不对称性：物理学有黑洞、上帝粒子等抓人的故事和命名，而数学虽重要却难传播。值得写作者读是因为它揭示了如何用命名、叙事和教学方式让专业内容对大众产生吸引力。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
给概念起一个有诗意、有画面感的名字，能让人过目不忘。
- 02
把抽象知识转化为激动人心的故事，像物理学家那样讲述。
- 03
科普写作要忠实于学科，避免滑稽失真的描述。
- 04
从问题出发，展示推理过程和历史背景，让读者像最初发现者一样思考。
HN 评论精选
科普要忠实，避免失真；‘无用’数学也可能有美妙应用。
数学界并不普遍认为普及数学是背叛；他们要么欢迎更多关注，要么不在乎。但他们会对某些物理科普那样的滑稽失真表示不满。说数学与真实世界无关很有误导性，因为物理就是应用数学；很多‘无用’的数学仍能美妙地描述现实现象。
jcranberry查看英文原文
>"There is a general feeling in the pure math community that popularizing mathematics is betraying mathematics,” I don't think this is true at all. My experience with math professors is that they either would welcome more popularity in the field, or they simply don't care. I DO think that they would be very dissatisfied with the kind of farcical representation of physics that sometimes goes on (looking at you Michio Kaku). I also think it's very misleading to say mathematics has nothing to do with the real world. The obvious contradiction would be physics, since it's applied math, but I think the quoted person was talking about mathematical research, which is a much fairer point. While it's true that a lot, if not most, of mathematical research has little to offer in terms of applications, but a lot of times "useless" math can still describe real world phenomena, sometimes very beautifully.
媒体炒作会扭曲科学叙事，写作要警惕背景故事的影响。
文章未明说的背景：十年前，圈外人Antony Lisi提出基于E_8群的‘异常简单万物理论’，未经同行评审认可，但媒体大肆炒作‘冲浪 dude 可能是下一个爱因斯坦’。这可能是数学家写E_8事实却被卷入上帝粒子奇怪 publicity 的原因。
rspeer查看英文原文
I recognize a piece of background that the article is leaving unstated. A decade ago, the mathematical group E_8 was the subject of a unified theory of physics by an outsider, Antony Lisi, who called it "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything". [1] This theory never got published (it was supposedly the most downloaded paper on arXiV for a while, though). Peer review was not favorable to it. But the popular press ran with it, especially because of the story they could tell about how a surfer dude was maybe the next Einstein. I assume that the echoes of this are why a mathematician writing down facts about E_8 got caught up in an explosion of weird publicity about God Particles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory_of_Everything
好名字能增加记忆点；复杂概念需要找到通俗描述。
数学也有可爱名字如‘怪物月光’、‘毛球定理’，有诗意且易记。但像P!=NP这样的重要问题缺乏大众能理解的简单描述。物理学的命名（黑洞、上帝粒子）更抓人。
jasode查看英文原文
>Even when researchers do want their work shared widely, why don’t we read more about the fuel that makes math grow? “The physicists tell exciting stories,” Vogan said. “In some ways, this is a failure of mathematicians to tell exciting stories.” The physicists also have better names. Black hole and God particle quicken the pulse somewhat more than “irreducible unitary representation.” Mathematics also has some cute names such as Monstrous Moonshine[1] and Hairy Ball Theorem[2]. I don't understand Monstrous Moonshine but the name had enough poetry to cause stickiness in the brain for later recall. A math problem closer to layman's experience with a cute name might be the "Secretary Problem".[3] Leaving aside the naming and surveying the "importance" of open math problems... I would guess the P!=NP proof would be an example. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any easy description that the average person would understand. The same goes for all the other Clay[4] Millenium problems. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem [4] http://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems
从问题解决的过程出发，展示推理和历史，能让内容更牢固。
我最好的数学老师Fred Irani不用教科书、不留作业，在课堂上像最初发现者一样从已知知识逻辑推理解决问题。学微积分像学历史，但数学记得牢。希望更多老师这样教。
redthrowaway查看英文原文
By far the best math teacher I ever had, Fred Irani, taught math in a way no teacher I'd had before or since did. We didn't use the textbook, and we didn't have homework. We just worked through the problems in class, the way the people who originally figured them out did: by working from what we already knew and making logical inferences. Learning calculus from him was as much history as it was math, but the math stuck. I really wish more math teachers taught that way.
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