ABSTRACT
In England there is an advertisement for a savoury spread called Marmite in which consumers responses are depicted as either ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’. School mathematics is sometimes known as the ‘Marmite’ subject; pupils either love it or hate it. For those who hate mathematics, it is almost incomprehensible to them that someone could like it so much that they give their career over to being a professional mathematician. The popular image of the mathematician is not dissimilar to the popular image of the scientist mentioned in Chapter 1: male, elderly, unfashionable, untidy, withdrawn into world that only he, and I stress he, is interested in or understands and which he can’t explain to others in everyday language. Yet, mathematics is the product of the human mind. Unfortunately, the mathematics we learn at school tells us little if anything of the mathematicians who produced it. Vera John Steiner and Reuben Hersh write compellingly about the ‘life mathematical’ enjoyed by those who commit to mathematics. They acknowledge that it is certainly not an easy life. It is full of intellectual struggle accompanied by a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows as ideas which seem promising turn out to be false and must be discarded in an ever more ruthless pursuit of truth. Among mathematicians there is fierce rivalry as well as intense friendship and loyalty, played out within a domain that few others can appreciate. However, Steiner and Hersh do acknowledge that for many the ‘life mathematical in school’ is a very different affair.
