logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2020
11m 34s

Humble Pi: When Math Goes Awry

NPR
About this episode
Pi Day (3/14) approaches. To help honor the coming holiday and the importance of math, stand-up mathematician Matt Parker unspools a common math mistake known as the off-by-one-error. His new book is called 'Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong In The Real World.'

Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.

To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy
Up next
Mar 13
An icy mystery: What are lake stars?
When producer Berly McCoy was out on her local frozen lake, she saw something she'd never seen before. There were dark spidery, star-shaped patterns in the ice and they freaked her out. So, we called an expert to find out more about them. In today’s episode, geophysicist Victor T ... Show More
12m 20s
Mar 11
We saved gray whales from extinction. Why are so many dying again?
In 1999 hundreds of gray whales washed up along the west coast of North America. More in 2000. They lost an estimated 25% of their population. But then the whale population recovered and people moved on. Until it happened again in 2019. And 2020, and 2021. It’s still happening to ... Show More
13m 11s
Mar 10
Sibling order may affect sexuality and identity
Today, guest host Selena Simmons-Duffin is exploring a detail very personal to her: How the number of older brothers a person has can influence their sexuality.Scientific research on sexuality has a dark history, with long-lasting harmful effects on queer communities. Much of the ... Show More
12m 24s
Recommended Episodes
Sep 2022
How to Teach Maths
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by comedian Sara Pascoe and the very numerate Prof Hannah Fry, maths comedian Matt Parker and statistician Prof David Spiegelhalter for a unique maths class. Are some of us just innately bad at maths or can everyone get to grips with algebra an ... Show More
42m 38s
Jul 2017
Maths is Fun
Calculator tricks and baking cakes - how two female mathematicians help people have fun with maths. Eugenia Cheng's aim is to rid the world of 'math phobia' and she uses baking to explain complex mathematical ideas to the general public, via her books and YouTube channel. For ins ... Show More
27m 20s
Dec 2020
Anna Weltman, "Supermath: The Power of Numbers for Good and Evil" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
Mathematics as a subject is distinctive in its symbolic abstraction and its potential for logical and computational rigor. But mathematicians tend to impute other qualities to our subject that set it apart, such as impartiality, universality, and elegance. Far from incidental, th ... Show More
1h 47m
Oct 2022
The problem of infinite Pi(e)
Pi is the ratio between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. Sounds dull – but pi turns out to have astonishing properties and crop up in places you would never expect. For a start, it goes on forever and never repeats, meaning it probably contains your name, date of birth, ... Show More
26m 27s
Mar 2023
How to think like a mathematician
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by comedian Jo Brand, mathematicians Prof Hannah Fry and Dr Eugenia Cheng, and xkcd webcomic creator Randall Munroe to discover how thinking like a mathematician could solve some tricky everyday conundrums. From the optimal strategy to finding ... Show More
42m 35s
Sep 2010
The Mathematicians Who Helped Einstein
This ten part history of mathematics from Newton to the present day, reveals the personalities behind the calculations: the passions and rivalries of mathematicians struggling to get their ideas heard. Professor Marcus du Sautoy shows how these masters of abstraction find a role ... Show More
13m 52s
May 2020
How do I learn maths when school’s shut?
<p>What’s the importance of zero, and how was it discovered? How do scientists calculate Pi’s infinite digits? Why do so many people find maths difficult – and what’s the most difficult thing in maths?</p><p>CrowdScience takes on a whole bunch of questions sent in by high school ... Show More
34m 34s
Mar 2022
Is maths real?
<p>Faced with one cake and eight hungry people, it’s pretty obvious how maths underpins reality. But as mathematics gets further from common sense and into seemingly abstract territory, nature still seems to obey its rules - whether in the orbit of a planet, the number of petals ... Show More
32m 15s
Listen to millions of songs and podcasts on Anghami