Money Matters Episode 27- I Was A Teenage Mathaphobe - Math For Life W/ Guest Jeffrey Bennett
Money Matters Episode 27- I Was A Teenage Mathaphobe - Math For Life W/ Guest Jeffrey Bennett
How can we solve the national debt crisis? Should you or your child take on a student loan? Is it safe to talk on a cell phone while driving? Are there viable energy alternatives to fossil fuels? Could simple policy changes reduce political polarization? These questions may all seem very different, but they share two things in common. First, they are all questions with important implications for either personal success or our success as a nation. Second, they all concern topics that we can fully understand only with the aid of clear quantitative or mathematical thinking. In other words, they are topics for which we need math for life--a kind of math that looks quite different from most of the math that we learn in school, but that is just as (and often more) important. In Math for Life, award-winning author Jeffrey Bennett simply and clearly explains the key ideas of quantitative reasoning and applies them to all the above questions and many more. He also uses these questions to analyze our current education system, identifying both shortfalls in the teaching of mathematics and solutions for our educational future. No matter what your own level of mathematical ability, and no matter whether you approach the book as an educator, student, or interested adult, you are sure to find something new and thought-provoking in Math for Life.
Today we were joined by Jeffrey Bennett and discussed his newest book Math for Life :
About Jeffrey:
Jeffrey Bennett holds a B.A. in Biophysics from the University of California at San Diego and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He specializes in mathematics and science education, spending most of his time as a writer, along with speaking to audiences ranging from elementary school children to college faculty, and offering teacher in-service workshops. He has taught extensively at all levels, including having founded and run a private science summer school for elementary and middle school children. At the college level, he has taught more than fifty classes in astronomy, physics, mathematics, and education. He is the author of best-selling college textbooks in four distinct subject areas: astronomy, mathematics, statistics, and astrobiology (life in the universe); together, these books have sold more than 1 million copies. He has written four books for general public: On the Cosmic Horizon (Addison Wesley, 2001); Beyond UFOs (Princeton University Press, 2008/2011), which was selected by Miami University as their Convocation book for all incoming students to read in 2008/9; Math for Life (Updated Edition from Big Kid Science, 2014), which won the Colorado Book Award for general nonfiction; and the forthcoming What is Relativity? (Columbia University Press, 2014). He is also the creator and author of the children’s series “Science Adventures with Max the Dog,” which includes Max Goes to the Moon, Max Goes to Mars, and Max Goes to Jupiter, and of The Wizard Who Saved the World. Through his “Max Goes to Schools” donation program, he has donated more than 23,000 copies of his children’s books to elementary school libraries in more than 60 countries. Dr. Bennett and his book Max Goes to the Moon were recognized with the 2013 AIP Science Communication Award.
Among his other major endeavors, he served two years as a Visiting Senior Scientist at NASA Headquarters, where his achievements included creating the Initiative to Develop Education through Astronomy (originally IDEA, now called IDEAS), developing the Perspectives From Space theme (and creating its poster set) for International Space Year, and helping start the program known as Flight Opportunities for Science Teacher EnRichment (FOSTER), which flew teachers on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory and will soon be taking teachers on the SOFIA airborne observatory.
Perhaps his most visible achievements have been his work in developing educational scale models of the solar system. He proposed the idea for and helped develop both the Colorado Scale Model Solar System (on the University of Colorado campus) and the Voyage Scale Model Solar System on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Among his current projects, he is the founder of Big Kid Science, a company dedicated to educating and inspiring children with the wonders of science. When not working, he enjoys participating in masters swimming and the daily adventures of life with his wife Lisa, children Grant and Brooke, and dog Cosmo.
You can listen live by going to www.kpft.org and clicking on the HD3 tab. You can also listen to this episode and others by podcast at:
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