Mathematician and professor Jordan Ellenberg, author of the book “Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else,” speaks with us about the limitations of logic, how math can help us develop mindful skepticism, and why gerrymandering is no longer visible to the naked eye.
Oct 2023
Sarah Lohman on Creating a More Affordable, Healthful, and Moral Food System
The culinary historian Sarah Lohman, author of the new book “Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods,” talks about the importance of engaging with local foodways, why “the idea that eating McDonald’s is universally bad is woefully unaware of class and racial conflicts,” and ... Show More
24m 57s
Oct 2023
A Mathematician Asks ‘Is Math Real?’
When math is based on abstract concepts, how do we know it’s correct? Dr. Eugenia Cheng takes on that question in a new book. The concept of math has been around for a long time, developing independently in many different cultures. In 1650 BC, the Egyptians were creating math tex ... Show More
33m 8s
Jul 2019
41: Reality Is More Than Complex (Group Theory and Physics)
Children who are being taught mathematics often balk at the idea of negative numbers, thinking them to be fictional entities, and often only learn later that they are useful for expressing opposite extremes of things, such as considering a debt an amount of money with a negative ... Show More
54m 50s
Sep 2024
Amir Alexander, "Liberty's Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Seen from an airplane, much of the United States appears to be a gridded land of startling uniformity. Perpendicular streets and rectangular fields, all precisely measured and perfectly aligned, turn both urban and rural America into a checkerboard landscape that stretches from h ... Show More
1 h
Sep 2024
How zero gave us mathematical and philosophical power | Talithia Williams
The abstract numeral that changed everything, according to mathematician Talithia Williams.
Before the introduction of zero, mathematics was a tangible subject, where numbers held weight and substance. With zero came the concept of a mathematical “nothing;” it turned our solid un ... Show More
6m 15s