This Was Surprising

There's less than a day left in my poll on the Elephant's Bookshelf, and I must say I'm a bit surprised. Not by the "record" number of responses — seven in my second-ever poll on a blog that is lucky to get 50-60 visitors per day — but rather that the answer I threw in almost as a joke has received three of those votes.

I love math. I even started off college as a math major (tried to do the whole Renaissance man thing, but it never quite impressed the girls as much as I'd hoped). But on a blog that's basically about reading and writing, I didn't expect to see so much interest there.

Perhaps it's the Danica McKellar influence.

Danica McKellar Offers a Swift Kick in the Math

Danica McKellar is at it again, with a new book on math for girls called Kiss My Math. This time, the actress and math major helps girls cope with pre-algebra.

I suspect McKellar's pleased to have seen that girls are closing the gap with boys when it comes to math, but she's also smart enough to know that it's not enough for girls to be as good at math as boys. They both need to be able to apply this knowledge to their futures. Math and science are crucial to American success in the future. Say what you will about kids today or how "my kids are doing fine." We need to encourage all kids to do their best in math and science, because even the most basic jobs these days tend to incorporate technological skills.

Pre-algebra is necessary, as is geometry, algebra, statistics, and even a healthy dose of trigonometry won't kill kids. Personally, I loved calculus. But we can't expect everything to change right away.

Probability, Permutations, and Danica McKellar

I've noticed something interesting. I did the math, and without a doubt the most popular post on my blog is the one I did about Danica McKellar's book about math, Math Doesn't Suck.

While I'd love to believe this popularity is due to my wonderful way with words and the overwhelming popularity of binomials, I suspect it has more to do with the fact that McKellar remains an attractive young woman whose legions of fans still think of her as the nice, cute "girl next door" she played in The Wonder Years all those years ago. That the image of her in front of the blackboard, which I borrowed for my blog, pops up on the second Google-images page doesn't hurt my page counts either. But again, that has more to do with her fans looking for her than my using the image; my goal in this particular matter is to promote reading and math.

So I posted a comment on my own blog posting in which I invite people to leave a comment that I'll pass along.

I don't know McKellar, but I'm willing to pass along any messages -- correction, any tactful messages (i.e., I refuse to relay anything sexual or anything else that I suspect she'd consider rude) -- that come to me through this blog. The rude garbage I'll ignore and not post. What do I get out of it? Nothing. But I'd like to see my traffic flow increase, and from what I can tell, Danica McKellar is bloggable gold. And I suspect she can calculate the various probability statements and permutations for why that is true. My kingdom for non-Euclidean geometry!

Win at Math

Danica McKellar, who is most famous for playing Winnie Cooper in the Wonder Years, has become an author, but her book isn't about acting or life in Hollywood. McKellar graduated from UCLA with a degree in mathematics and has had a theorem that she co-wrote published in academic literature. I've never met the author of Math Doesn't Suck, but I'd love to buy her a drink and talk to her about Euler, Pascal, and irrational numbers. Oh yeah, and ask what she was thinking when she decided to do Path of Destruction.

I'm actually impressed by the amount of work she's done other than Wonder Years, and she's started to get writing and producing credits. Clearly, she's a smart woman, and I hope she'll be a notable player in the industry -- and possibly also in writing more books -- for many years.