Math-Frolic "profile" #10 is for all the middle-aged male mathematicians who came-of-age in the generation following behind my own esteemed, fab generation (that brought you the Beatles and Tiny Tim)... i.e., those of you who's first heart-throb was Winnie Cooper!
For all who didn’t experience the 1960s first-hand, “The Wonder Years” was an award-winning, memorable TV show from 1988 to 1993 that captured some of the 60's essence, with retro plot-lines and music, and child stars Fred Savage and Danica McKellar (winning 22 awards and 54 other nominations in the process!). I don’t know what's become of Fred, but Danica, bless her heart, became a book-authoring mathematician or a mathematical actress or an icon of American nostalgia... take your pick!
After beating out her very own sister for the role of 'Winnie Cooper' and eventually ending a very successful run, McKellar continued her acting as an adult while also enrolling at UCLA where she graduated summa cum laude with a math degree in 1998 (at which point she no doubt realized, to her dismay, that she could've attended Pomona College, right down the road). She originally planned to be a film major, but says “I kept finding myself taking math classes for fun, 'cause I missed them from high school!” (That's right folks, "FOR FUN"!)
While the baby boomer male generation may still crush on Chelsea Handler, a younger generation probably has never forgotten Winnie Cooper’s first kiss on national TV. And perhaps they even remember one of her personal favorite episodes where she outscores co-star Savage (as “Kevin Arnold”) on the math SAT -- a very rude thing to do back in the day!... luckily times have changed. Jimmy Fallon, who named his first-born girl “Winnie,” once remarked that Winnie Cooper was “the coolest girl in any TV show ever.” Of course he’s too baby-faced-young to remember Mouseketeer Annette Funicello… but, I digress.
Born a Capricorn in 1975, Danica was destined for success, just like Elvis Presley, Stephen Hawking, and uhhh, Howard Stern. Looking her up for this report, several things surprised me. As someone not very tuned into TV or movies I had no idea that since her childhood success, McKellar has been in over 30 films, and has 50+ TV appearances to her credit, as well as several voice-overs. She guested in diverse hits ranging from "The Big Bang Theory" and "Dancing With the Stars," to a recurring role on "The West Wing" as a White House assistant, even though no White House assistants or staff in the last 2+ years has had an IQ even close to Danica’s (although rumor has it that Sarah Sanders did once sit in on a math class). And she was invited to be on Donald Trump’s crowning intellectual masterpiece (cough, cough) “The Apprentice” but wisely turned it down (probably because of that small-print clause in the contract that permitted/promoted groping by the show's main protagonist). McKellar still acts today, while also being a mom and author.
To date she has written 6 math books (or, in base 2, 110 books), usually with catchy titles intended to get the attention of young people, especially girls:
Math Doesn’t Suck: How to survive middle school math without losing your mind or
breaking a nail
breaking a nail
Kiss My Math
Hot X: Algebra Exposed
Girls Get Curves: Geometry Takes Shape
Do Not Open This Math Book
Goodnight Numbers
She is dedicated to seeing more middle school girls pursue their interests and talents in mathematics, and not be nudged away from it early on for social reasons. She says at one point:
“My main concern with the condition of mathematics in high school is that there's a lot of fear involved! Math is not, generally speaking, presented in a fun way. The concepts, as I see them, ARE fun, and that's the way I'd like to convey them myself.”
[Danica has taken heat from some quarters for the approach she takes in her books, but her attitude (as I understand it) is that girls should be allowed to maintain “girly” interests while succeeding in math/science, and moreover you have to approach people where they (or society) are at, not where you might like them ideally to be, in order to bring about change.]
In all honesty, I’m not directly very familiar with McKeller's books (perhaps having something to do with the fact that I was never a pre-teen girl in my current lifetime — though in this era of gender fluidity, who knows!), but they have won wide praise and several awards (including the 2014 JPBM Communications Award, which places her in very luminous company... even if you include Matt Parker).
She promotes her approach to math at her website:
Danica admits there are two different sides to her personality, the half that loves logic and math and puzzles, and the half that loves acting and entertaining (…there’s probably also a half that gets sick of talking about/answering questions about "The Wonder Years," but, realistically, she’ll still be doing that when she’s 94 and a whole new generation of cable subscribers discover her). Even though 3 halves can't be right...
In 1998, with another student and her UCLA professor she proved/published a new math/physics theorem, the Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem:
“Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity for ferromagnetic Ashkin–Teller models on Z2”
You can read the paper here:
It deals with magnetism in two dimensions, and I would gladly take time to explain it in more detail for you all… except that that would require me to learn some math… and science… and big words, myself. I believe this paper earned her an Erdös Number of 4, but who’s counting (certainly not Paul, he’s long gone to meet the Supreme Fascist in the sky... as he would say -- but hey, just maybe her proof made it into "The Book" so he is aware of her).
Danica is also into palindromes, though that may only be the result of eating too much ‘UFO tofu’… and then wondering aloud ‘do geese see God.’ She has enjoyed posting questions on her Twitter account that have palindromic answers. I've noticed that quite a few math buffs enjoy palindromes; I’m not sure why that is, but Wow!
You can follow Danica on social media (in the event that you're one of the dwindling number of needy folks who still think social media have any pertinence in polite, civil society):
Here’s an old (2007) transcribed interview with Danica, when she was coming out with her first book:
And here she is answering a few questions for nostalgia buffs (…in which she reveals that her childhood crush was not on Fred Savage, nor even Terry Tao, but on Michael J. Fox!... but then who hasn't had a crush on Michael J. Fox at one time or another...or... perhaps I've said too much):
…side-note: Tao was actually one of McKellar’s instructors at UCLA, and wrote glowingly about her once in this long post on his own blog:
Here’s hoping Danica will keep encouraging young girls to outshine the boys, and pursue math and STEM fields to their hearts-content; so that just maybe one day, in a world Donald Trump can’t even fathom (and for which Ivanka is dismally unqualified), women will rule (...and, I don't mean Theresa May).
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Prior math profiles have been of:
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