Nelly Litvak

Who needs mathematics: talking maths to a general public

Recently I have written a popular-science book `Who need mathematics? A clear book about how the digital world works’ (In Russian). The goal of the book was to introduce a general audience to applications of mathematics in digital technologies. The book was nominated for the Enlightener award – the most prestigious popular science prize in Russia.
In this talk I will present parts of the book in the way I tell it to a general audience. I will also share my experiences of communicating the mathematical knowledge to a general audience. What I have discovered is the complex mixture of awe, fair, interest and pain related to mathematics in the society. Motivated by this, I have started a Facebook group `Mathematics Great and Terrible’ (in Russian), where I try to teach schools math to adults who want to give the subject a second chance. The group has gained 4200+ participants in just 5 months! There is a lot of evidence that the interest in mathematics in society is huge. In this talk I would like discuss the need and the right ways of popularization of maths for general publics, as well as teaching math at schools.