Creating by numbers

There is a very real beauty in mathematics. All those random numbers and symbols coming together to produce a nice, neat answer. There’s no argument; it’s either right or wrong. Maths appeals to the journalist in me. You could argue that maths should repel the creative part, however it’s about seeing the magnificence in the maths.  

Mathematics is the logic we use to explain things such as quantity and shape. We use it to try to make sense of everything from the size of the universe to the amount of paint you need to buy to decorate a room. The numbers are a language shorthand bringing a common uniformity in thinking; numbers with lots of zeros are generally big and a single zero represents nothing or emptiness.  

So if maths characterises regularity, why does it appeal to the creative in me?  

Numbers can show the scale of achievement.  For example, here’s the key numbers from our latest project:

·      32 interviews

·      14 vox pops

·      12 locations

·      24,000 miles

·      Nearly 3 terabytes of footage

·      A zillion and one cups of coffee

But (32 + 14 + 12) x 24,000 divided by 2.8 (forget the coffee, it’s a constant and never changes) doesn’t necessarily mean quality. We could have done twice as many interviews and travelled half the distance. The key part of the calculation is not the quantity, it’s how the numbers work together that counts.  

The film Hidden Figures is the true story of three African-American women, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, who play a vital role by calculating the trajectory and orbit to allow NASA to send astronaut John Glenn into space – and to bring him back safely. Put aside for one moment the racial message from the film, these days when you have a pocket computer at your fingertips in the shape of a smart phone, it’s difficult to imagine just how brilliant these women were.

But it wasn’t just the numbers that made these women help achieve something great. The real brilliance came in seeing and understanding the task ahead. It was only then they worked with the numbers to make it happen. The maths was just the process – the beauty was creating something historic by marrying the creativity with the maths to turn a vision into reality.

I have enough faith in maths to know there must be a single calculation out there that demonstrates if quality has been achieved. What I do know how to calculate is that every single one of the 32 interviews earned its place in our project and that each mile travelled was worth it because it made the overall result better. That’s the combination of creativity and maths that works for me.