Maths for Kids / Maths is Not Boring: The Kids Maths Podcast

The story of the equals sign for kids: how Welsh doctor Robert Recorde drew two parallel lines in his 1557 book The Whetstone of Witte.

• Why Recorde chose two lines of the same length
• How his book was the first in English to use plus and minus signs too
• Why equals means both sides balance, not the answer comes next
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of the law of large numbers for kids: how John Kerrich tossed a coin 10,000 times during the Second World War, and how Jacob Bernoulli explained the result in a book published in 1713.

• Why Kerrich's 5,067 heads is so close to half
• Why a coin has no memory, and the next toss can still be anything
• How the same idea lets a survey of many people tell us about a whole crowd
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of negative numbers for kids: numbers below zero, from Chinese counting rods about 2,000 years ago to Brahmagupta's rules in India in 628 CE.

• How Chinese mathematicians used red and black rods in The Nine Chapters
• Why many European mathematicians refused them, and one called them absurd in 1544
• Where negative numbers live today, from thermometers to lift buttons
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of fractals for kids: why the coast of Britain gets longer the shorter your ruler, and how Benoit Mandelbrot asked the coastline question in 1967.

• How Lewis Fry Richardson found two different lengths for the Spain and Portugal border
• Helge von Koch's 1904 snowflake, with an endless edge inside a circle
• Where fractals hide in ferns, broccoli, rivers and lightning
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of place value for kids: why ten fingers mean most of the world counts in tens, and how the system we use today grew up in India.

• How the Babylonians counted in sixties, which is why an hour has 60 minutes
• Why the Maya counted in twenties
• How the same digit means one, ten or a hundred depending on where it sits
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of Flatland and the fourth dimension for kids: Edwin Abbott Abbott's 1884 book about a square who lives in a flat world and meets a sphere.

• What a sphere looks like when it passes through a flat world
• How the sphere lifts the square out of Flatland to show him up
• Why the shadow of a four-dimensional cube looks like a cube inside a cube
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of the pigeonhole principle for kids: why two people in London must have the same number of hairs on their heads, and how Peter Dirichlet set out the rule in 1834.

• Why more pigeons than pigeonholes means two must share
• How a French puzzle book used the hairs example back in 1622
• Why any 13 people include two born in the same month
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of the Monty Hall problem for kids: three doors, one car and two goats, and how Marilyn vos Savant explained in 1990 why switching wins twice as often.

• Why your first pick has only a one in three chance
• How the host's open door is a clue that changes the chances
• How even the great mathematician Paul Erdos only believed it after a computer test
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of the Four Colour Theorem for kids: how student Francis Guthrie noticed in 1852 that four colours are enough for any map, and how it took until 1976 to prove it.

• How Alfred Kempe's 1879 proof was believed until Percy Heawood found a mistake
• How Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken used a computer for about 1,200 hours
• Why mathematicians argued over whether a computer proof counts
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.

The story of the seven bridges of Königsberg for kids: the Sunday walk nobody could finish, and how Leonhard Euler showed why in 1735 by drawing the first network.

• How Euler swapped the city for dots and lines
• Why every piece of land needs its bridges in pairs for the walk to work
• How map apps and the internet use the same idea today
• Quiz questions to answer along the way

Maths is Not Boring: rated 5★ on Apple Podcasts and 4.7★ on Spotify. Follow or subscribe to hear the story of a new great idea in maths every day.