Wednesday, 25 June in Swansea University’s Faraday lecture theatre, TV presenter Johnny Ball gave the inaugural lecture on a program to promote further mathematical education in Wales. Ball, 70, the charismatic mathematician known for Think Again and Johnny Ball Reveals All, was chosen by Professor Aubrey Truman, the Head of the Maths department at University, for his ability to make learning exciting for people of all ages.

The lecture focused on the advanced mathematical equations behind modern conveniences such as iPods. Gorseinon College student James Harris, 17, said of the lecture, ‘It was superb. Excellent. I’m speechless, really.’

Following the considerable success of the lecture, The Antagonist took the opportunity to ask Johnny Ball his opinion on the state of education today.

The Antagonist: So, what do you think of the current maths curriculum?

Johnny Ball: Sadly, it’s bereft of excitement. It’s lacking in stimulation. In an effort for what they call numeracy, which is only one branch of mathematics, they’re forsaking all the other mathematics, all the geometry and perspective. It is quite clear when you learn geometry, if you know this and you know that, you can put the two together and know something more. That’s the joy of it. Lady Augusta Ada Byron, who was the world’s first computer programmer, met maths late through a teacher, a very good teacher who taught her maths and invigorated her. It nearly ruined her life; she also lost the family jewels gambling because she thought she knew the odds of probability better than the bookmakers, and although she may have understood it better, the bookmakers set the odds so that they never lose, and she failed to see this. Still, she is a perfect example for young people of what a person with a mind and a desire for knowledge and excitement and joy of life can do, because she got into so much trouble. As I say, she gambled all her family’s money and yet she came out at the top of it as a very valuable and worthwhile person.

TA: What do you think of the declining enrolment rates in mathematics?

JB: It’s a problem with the curriculum. It’s really so uninteresting, and the kids aren’t getting their feet wet in any of the sciences to even know whether or not they’ve got an aptitude for it. Today I talked about the three inventions of Faraday that created the system whereby we have electric light and we can control electricity. That’s what he did, and it’s so powerful, but we’re not even teaching that. If we don’t teach what our heroes did, we will never get the next generation of heroes to follow them. With footballers, if England were to win the European cup, you would see a flood of young people wanting to be professional footballers following in the wake of these heroes. So we’ve got to create heroes, and we’ve got to explain in our curriculum who these heroes were who got us here. They were ordinary people. They were very ordinary people who went that extra mile, and that’s what education is about.

TA: Who are your heroes?

JB: My heroes are Archimedes, Newton, Faraday, Descartes... if we’re taught anything, we’re taught that Isaac Newton gave us the rainbow. Descartes did it before him, and Descartes did the maths and got the angles and worked out the precise angles that turned light blue or turned light red. Now we’ve got an invention in the United States that’s a solar panel that actually splits the light up into its rainbow colours and treats each section of light differently, and it’s 48% efficient on the bench. So by the time it gets into commerce and around, it’ll be phenomenal. That’s what I get excited about.

TA: Is that how you’re able to keep up your enthusiasm?

JB: I think so. Now, I didn’t mention this today, because I didn’t have time and it didn’t fit in, but I’m terribly sad about the situation of teenagers in South Wales. There is that argument that it’s a difficult part of their lives, being a teenager. There’s no question about that, but to me, it’s the very moment you should be thinking, however bad this is, ‘I’m going to come out of this on top’, because that’s what people do. That’s what everybody does. You do get depressed around teenage years; you do wonder where you are, who you are, how you fit in, whether you’ve got any chance, and very often you think, ‘god, I don’t know that I have’, but it’s part of growing up. It’s actually that moment from which the greatness you can become starts to happen and the confidence starts to grow. From then, you become a better person. By the time you’re in your twenties, you know that it was the most miserable time in your life, when you didn’t fit, when you didn’t know what to wear, when you didn’t get on with anybody, when you were scared to death of the opposite sex, you know, because you couldn’t cope with it. You’ll get through it. I didn’t say that in the lecture, but I wanted to. The whole lecture was about that, being positive and being confident that you will not only be a better person as you grow old, but that you can make the world a better place.