Podcast Episodes

P9: Give or Take (Back-of-the-Envelope Estimates / Fermi Problems)

How many piano tuners are there in New York City? How much cheese is there in Delaware? And how can you find out? All of this and more on this proble…

4 years, 10 months ago

60: HAMILTON! [But Not the Musical] (Quaternions)

i^2 = j^2 = k^2 = ijk = -1. This deceptively simple formula, discovered by Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843, led to a revolution in…

4 years, 11 months ago

59: A Good Source of Fibers (Fiber Bundles)

Mathematics is full of all sorts of objects that can be difficult to comprehend. For example, if we take a slip of paper and glue it to itself, we ca…

4 years, 11 months ago

58: Bringing Curvy Back (Gaussian Curvature)

In introductory geometry classes, many of the objects dealt with can be considered 'elementary' in nature; things like tetrahedrons, spheres, cylinde…

5 years ago

P8: Tangent Tango (Morikawa's Recently Solved Problem)

Join Sofía and Gabriel as they talk about Morikawa's recently solved problem, first proposed in 1821 and not solved until last year!

Also, if you have…

5 years ago

P7: Root for Squares (Irrationality of the Square Root of Two)

Join Sofía and Gabriel as they discuss an old but great proof of the irrationality of the square root of two.

[Featuring: Sofía Baca, Gabriel Hesch]

Pa…

5 years ago

57: You Said How Much?! (Measure Theory)

If you are there, and I am here, we can measure the distance between us. If we are standing in a room, we can calculate the area of where we're stand…

5 years, 1 month ago

P6: How Many Angles in a Circle? (Curvature; Euclidean Geometry)

Sofía and Gabriel discuss the question of "how many angles are there in a circle", and visit theorems from Euclid, as well as differential calculus.

T…

5 years, 1 month ago

56: More Sheep than You Can Count (Transfinite Cardinal Numbers)

Look at all you phonies out there.

You poseurs.

All of you sheep. Counting 'til infinity. Counting sheep.

*pff*

What if I told you there were more there?…

5 years, 1 month ago

55: Order in the Court (Transfinite Ordinal Numbers)

As a child, did you ever have a conversation that went as follows:

"When I grow up, I want to have a million cats"

"Well I'm gonna have a billion billi…

5 years, 1 month ago