Selling Science.

I've learned a lot this week about how science goes from this, to this. How does that rough hewn product forged by night after night of head-against-chalkboard-banging become a marketable piece of the mainstream media?

Good question! The answer, I'm not quite sure yet. This is what I've been thinking about for the past week, and while the process is slowly revealing itself to me, much is yet to be discovered. One relevant question one might ask: how does a reporter who knowns nothing about the technical aspects of a field obtain the relevant information? Alternatively: how does a scientist who knows nothing about writing communicate her ideas in a concise and exciting manner?

It's often frustrated me that mathematicians are so unwilling to loosen the screws of precision, or simplify notions through metaphor or hand-waving. I've seen mathematicians get frustrated, confused, and even angry when someone tries to do this. I pointed this out to a senior reporter today and asked if this was ever a problem for him, a point of communication breakdown in his interviews. His answer was very illuminating. He asked, "are you a grad student, or a reporter?" Turns out big shots don't get angry with the press for saying things like

"...so a Z-module is really just like a Smurf village where a big arm comes out and lifts all the Smurfs up and drops them back down again."

or better yet,

"...a genus of a lattice is basically just a big basket of lattices that are really really similar."

In fact, that's exactly what they want, because guess what, it's really hard to sell science...forget about math. Upshot: we, the researchers of the world, want our story told, and we will accommodate those who wish to tell it for us.

And here I am in a studio watching today's Talk of the Nation on air.

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