Basic Math of Politics

Reposting from the University of Connecticut's UConn Today blog (H/T Palle Jorgenesen).  Who was it who said, "Humanity's greatest problem is our failure to understand the exponential function"?

Dean Teitelbaum of UConn's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences write about a call "for a public discourse that allows us to consider more than one variable at a time", and to pay more attention to “our friends in the math department” who know how to do this using Calculus.

He goes on, "It’s flattering to be called on to help heal society’s woes – mathematicians aren’t often put in that role – so I spent some time thinking about how a mathematical perspective might help improve our collective approach to societal problems. In response, I offer three specific areas of mathematics that people don’t seem to properly appreciate, leading them to poor decision-making in many different areas of society. As it turns out, all three areas are even simpler than Calculus."

Read the full post here.