Breaking Math Podcast

Michael Brooks is a science writer who specializes in making difficult concepts easier to grasp. In his latest book, Brooks goes through several mathematical concepts and discusses their motivation, history, and discovery. So how do stories make it easier to learn? What are some of the challenges associated with conveying difficult concepts to the general public? And who, historically, has been a mathematician? All of this and more on this episode of Breaking Math. Songs were Breaking Math Intro and Outro by Elliot Smith of Albuquerque. This episode is published under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribute-ShareAlike-NonCommercial license. For more information, visit CreativeCommons.org [Featuring: Sofía Baca, Gabriel Hesch, Meryl Flaherty; Michael Brooks]

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There are times in mathematics when we are generalizing the behavior of many different, but similar, entities. One such time that this happens is the use cases of Big O notation, which include describing the long-term behavior of functions, and talking about how accurate numerical calculations are. On this problem episode, we are going to discuss Big O notation and how to use it.

This episode is licensed by Sofia Baca under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For more information, visit CreativeCommons.org.

[Featuring: Sofía Baca]

The world is often uncertain, but it has only been in the last half millennium that we've found ways to interact mathematically with that concept. From its roots in death statistics, insurance, and gambling to modern Bayesian networks and machine learning, we've seen immense productivity in this field. Every way of looking at probability has something in common: the use of random variables. Random variables let us talk about events with uncertain outcomes in a concrete way. So what are random variables? How are they defined? And how do they interact? All of this, and more, on this episode of Breaking Math.

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Featuring music by Elliot Smith. For info about music used in ads, which are inserted dynamically, contact us at [email protected]

[Featuring: Sofía Baca, Gabriel Hesch; Millicent Oriana]

Join Sofía Baca with her guest Millicent Oriana from the newly launched Nerd Forensics podcast as they discuss some apparent paradoxes in probability and Russian roulette.

Intro is "Breaking Math Theme" by Elliot Smith. Ads feature "Ding Dong" by Simon Panrucker

[Featuring: Sofía Baca; Millicent Oriana]

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This episode is sponsored by

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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support

Katharine Hayhoe was the lead author on the 2018 US Climate Assessment report, and has spent her time since then spreading the word about climate change. She was always faced with the difficult task of convincing people who had stakes in things that would be affected by acknowledging the information in her report. In her newest book, “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World”, she discusses the challenges associated with these conversations, at both the micro and macro level. So who is Katherine Heyhoe? How has she learned to get people to acknowledge the reality of climate science? And is she the best, or worst, person to strike up a discussion about how the weather’s been? All of this, and more, on this episode of Breaking Math. Papers Cited: -“99.94 percent of papers agree with the scientific consensus.”

More info: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0270467617707079

This episode is distributed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International License. For more information, visit creativecommons.org.

Intro is "Breaking Math Theme" by Elliot Smith. Ads feature "Ding Dong" by Simon Panrucker

[Featuring: Sofía Baca, Gabriel Hesch, Meryl Flaherty; Katherine Heyhoe, Elliot Smith]

One tells a lie, the other the truth! Have fun with Sofía and Meryl as they investigate knight, knave, and spy problems!

Intro is "Breaking Math Theme" by Elliot Smith. Music in the ads were Plug Me In by Steve Combs and "Ding Dong" by Simon Panrucker. You can access their work at freemusicarchive.org.

[Featuring: Sofia Baca; Meryl Flaherty]

Welcome to another engaging episode of the Breaking Math Podcast! Today's episode, titled "What is the Use?," features a fascinating conversation with the renowned mathematician and author, Professor Ian Stewart. As Professor Stewart discusses his latest book "What's the Use? How Mathematics Shapes Everyday Life," we dive deep into the real-world applications of mathematics that often go unnoticed in our daily technologies, like smartphones, and their unpredictable implications in various fields.

We'll explore the history of quaternions, invented by William Rowan Hamilton, which now play a critical role in computer graphics, gaming, and particle physics. Professor Stewart will also shed light on the non-commutative nature of quaternions, mirroring the complexities of spatial rotations, and how these mathematical principles find their correspondence in the natural world.

Furthermore, our discussion will encompass the interconnectivity within mathematics, touching upon how algebra, geometry, and trigonometry converge to paint a broader picture of this unified field. We also discuss the intriguing concept of "Fearful Symmetry" and how symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns govern everything from tiger stripes to sand dunes.

With references to his other works, including "Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities" and "The Science of Discworld," Professor Stewart brings an element of surprise and entertainment to the profound impact of mathematics on our understanding of the world.

So stay tuned as we unlock the mysteries and the omnipresent nature of math in this thought-provoking episode with Professor Ian Stewart!