I’ll be on The Today Show on Thursday, August 15, at 10 am Eastern time (the “Kathie Lee and Hoda” part of the program.) Danica McKellar will also be on — besides being an actor (“Winnie Cooper”) she has written a series of books aiming to get teenage girls excited about math. I have her latest out from the library and it’s very rich in mathematical content! I like the way she describes the triangle inequality, very poignantly, as representing the long edge of the triangle trying with all its might to get its too-short arms to touch each other…
I’m not sure exactly what’s going to take place! Except that McKellar and I will get to tell millions of people that math is awesome, not boring.
Previously on the blog: Sara Marcus interviews McKellar. And on Terry’s blog, a nice explanation of McKellar’s work in statistical mechanics, along with the tidbit that McKellar was second from the top in Terry’s intro topology course in 1997.
Quomodocumque 
Is your appearance on the show related to the upcoming one-year anniversary of the announced solution of ABC?
In the hour preceding the hour of your appearance on The Today Show, they had a segment of someone showing the audience how to make burgers so good that “it will make your life exponentially better.” Ouch.
I just watched it. How can I put it? Not much happened.
http://www.today.com/klgandhoda/danica-mckellar-poses-1-million-math-challenge-6C10925229
Any try is to be commended, the type of show didn’t help.
Actually, wouldn’t Jordan and Danica make a nice team for a series of documentaries, perhaps a bit like those of Brian Cox on the BBC: some nice storytelling, covering places and centuries, and some interactions with a public as well. The Wonders of Mathematics, in 4 parts, sounds great! And maybe crowdfunding could help if no old-media funding comes along. Depending on what you’d plan to cover from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_mathematics perhaps $30,000 would be enough for a few plane tickets and some attractive CGI.
Just a thought…
Hey, Jordan, aren’t you going to say anything about the experience? And is McKellar being paid to do PR for Beal?
[…] As promised, I was on daytime TV this week! The clip is available for posterity at the Today Show website. […]