Mary Wootters discusses how error-correcting codes work, and how they are essential for reliable communication and storage.
Oct 2023
A Mathematician Asks ‘Is Math Real?’
<p>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.</p><p> </p><p>The concept of math has been around for a long time, developing independently in many different cultures. In 1650 BC, the Egyptians were ... 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
Mar 2024
268 | Matt Strassler on Relativity, Fields, and the Language of Reality
<p>In the 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell argued that light was a wave of electric and magnetic fields. But it took over four decades for physicists to put together the theory of special relativity, which correctly describes the symmetries underlying Maxwell's theory. The delay came i ... Show More
1h 30m
Jun 2023
Graham Harman and Christopher Witmore, "Objects Untimely: Object-Oriented Philosophy and Archaeology" (Polity Press, 2023)
Objects generate time; time does not generate or change objects. That is the central thesis of this book by the philosopher Graham Harman and the archaeologist Christopher Witmore, who defend radical positions in their respective fields.
Against a current and pervasive conviction ... Show More
1h 4m
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
Oct 2024
486. The Intersection of Science and Meaning | Dr. Brian Greene
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down with physicist and author, Dr. Brian Greene. They discuss the strange conceptualization of “before” the Big Bang, how time might be a microscopic phenomenon, how order existed at the point of the universe's creation, what would happen if you fell ... Show More
1h 33m