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The Curious Nature of Science Communication: My Summer at Scientific American

Max Springer

A life immersed in science was the only one I could ever envision. Growing up, I spent hours gazing at the stars, identifying constellations, or learning to distinguish birdsongs while exploring the creek behind my house. Each day was—and still is—driven by an endless curiosity. When applying to college, I even selected “other” as my intended major, choosing instead to tell schools that I intended to study everything.

Unfortunately, not having a major looks more like studying “nothing,” rather than everything. After two years at Cornell, I had taken courses from every STEM major without making meaningful progress towards one specific discipline. Sensing my worry about getting boxed into a field I might eventually tire of, a perceptive undergraduate advisor pointed out an obvious truth: mathematics is the language of the universe.

Now in the final year of my PhD in applied mathematics at the University of Maryland, I’ve had the opportunity to publish research across many of my interests—neuroscience, economics, artificial intelligence, to name a few. Yet throughout graduate school, I’ve felt the absence of one major component: the chance to share the preposterously cool research in modern mathematics with a wider audience. Each morning, I scroll through arXiv, reading abstracts of groundbreaking work in fields far from my own, always wishing I had the time to delve deeply into the proofs.

This unending curiosity is what ultimately led me to science communication. With fascinating research emerging faster than I could ever keep up with, writing about it became a way to explore any topic I wanted while helping to dispel the myth that math is an obscure field reserved for a select few.

Applying for the Mass Media Fellowship was a no-brainer, though it felt like a true Hail Mary. My only writing experience consisted of small blog posts (which, admittedly, were a big hit with my mom) and the other applicants seemed like professionals. So, when the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) extended an offer, I was stunned. Even more astonishing was their question about whether I’d be interested in writing for Scientific American—the magazine I’d been subscribed to since childhood.

I was incredibly fortunate to be sponsored by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and wrote about a dozen stories for Scientific American over the summer. My topics ranged from high-dimensional geometry and the state of large language models to combinatorial algorithms and even tiling conjectures for the print magazine. At each step, I worked closely with my editors to ensure that even the most abstract mathematical ideas were accessible, inviting all readers into a world we sometimes take for granted. For example, in a story on small-volume bodies in n-dimensional space, I initially thought explaining the Reuleaux triangle would be the toughest challenge. But while 2D and 3D geometry is intuitive for most readers, I had to step back and recognize that my daily comfort working in n-dimensional spaces was quite different from the average reader’s experience—what I took for granted as a natural mathematical environment was actually a significant conceptual hurdle!

The fellowship gave me the chance to write about topics both within and beyond mathematics, with unwavering support from my sponsors and editors. My passion for physics and environmental protection inspired a piece on ozone layer depletion caused by atmospheric metals, while my deep passion for 90s cinema led me to explore the science of tornadoes as depicted in Twister. With each new assignment, I felt a growing sense of freedom to follow my scientific passions, transforming curiosities into stories that I never imagined I’d have the platform to tell.

I learned a tremendous amount over the summer and fully intend to keep writing articles when time permits as I return to complete my dissertation. The barriers to mathematical literacy remain daunting for many, and I’m committed to working with other communicators to help lower them. This commitment stems from my own formative experiences with science communication—growing up watching Bill Nye and reading Carl Sagan showed me that science could be a deeply human pursuit, not an inaccessible field. I hope that through my writings and career I might personally push at least one reader to also go about their day in a more curious manner, taking time out of their busy day to admire our world—and I fully intend to use the opportunities afforded to me by the AMS sponsorship to make this dream a reality.

More information on the AMS-AAAS Mass Media Fellowship can be found at https://www.ams.org/massmediafellow.

Credits

Photo of Max Springer is courtesy of Max Springer.