Best Egyptian Maths Podcasts (2024)

1
What is a Pattern? 12:46

7d ago12:46

12:46

Math is in a sense the science of patterns. Alon Amit explores the question of what exactly is a pattern. A common example is the decimal digits of pi. The statement that they have no pattern seems to be either obvious or completely untrue. We explore the spectrum of pattern-ness from simple repetition to total randomness and finally answer the que…

1
What's the Big Deal about Pi? 17:36

1M ago17:36

17:36

Alon Amit joins us on the antipode of Pi Day to counter the myths and mysteries of this most famous irrational number. There's nothing magical about a non-repeating string of digits. The real and profound mystery is the ubiquity of pi. It shows up in places that have nothing to do with circles, such as the sum of the reciprocals of the squares of t…

1
Turning Math-Hating Prisoners into Mathematicians 22:14

2M ago22:14

22:14

Kate Pearce, a post-doc researcher at UT Austin, talks about her experience teaching math in a women's prison. Her remedial college algebra students came in with negative experience in math, so she devised ways to make the topics new. The elective class called, coincidentally, The Art of Mathematics, explored parallels between math and art, infinit…

1
Stop Overselling Mathematics 17:20

3M ago17:20

17:20

Alon Amit, prolific Quora math answerer, argues that an honest representation of mathematical ideas is enough to spark interest in math. It's not necessary to exaggerate the role of math; the golden ratio does not drive the stock market, the solution of the Riemann hypothesis will not kill cryptography, and Grothendieck did not advance robotics. Hi…

1
Math for Kids: It's not a Spectator Sport 21:52

4M ago21:52

21:52

Dave Cole, the author of the Math Kids series of books, talks about introducing kids to math as a fun challenge and puzzle beyond the rote memorization they've come to expect. Kids who like to read are enticed by puzzles and mysteries. Möbius strips, Pascal's triangle, and other concepts that are new to them, make them marvel, "Is this math?" They …

1
Egyptian Fractions 17:21

5M ago17:21

17:21

Neil Epstein, Associate Professor of Mathematics at George Mason University, introduces us to the fractions used by the ancient Egyptians, well before the Greeks and Romans. The Egyptian fractions all had a unit numerator. They could represent any fraction as a sum of unique unit fractions, a fact that was not proved until centuries later. These su…

1
Da Vinci's Math Teacher: Merging the Practical and Theoretical 16:46

6M ago16:46

16:46

Jeanne Lazzarini joins us again to introduce us to the mathematician Luca Pacioli, whose views of numbers and shapes influenced Leonardo da Vinci, leading to a period of art and invention. His book, De Divina Proportione, is the only book ever illustrated by da Vinci. The Renaissance was a period when mathematicians studied art and artists studied …

1
Alon Amit, sharing the mathematical journey in Quora and Math Circles 20:26

7M ago20:26

20:26

Alon Amit, probably the most prolific answerer of math questions on Quora, shares his reasons for his deep involvement. He seeks to share the journey, the exploration and stumbles of solving a problem. He's especially drawn to questions that will teach him things, even if he never completes the answer. He also shares his joy of problem solving with…

1
Too Much Math in the Schools? These Books Counter That Narrow View 20:59

8M ago20:59

20:59

Lee Kraftchick continues his tour of books about math written for the non-mathematician like himself. We also can't let go of Gödel Escher Bach. Lee cites an opinion piece in the Washington Post, titled, "The Problem with Schools Today is Too Much Math," which gives a very narrow view of what math is. He counters it with a response (see theartofmat…

1
Books for the Mathematical Tourist 20:41

9M ago20:41

20:41

Lee Kraftchick discusses some of his favorite books for non-mathematicians to explore the breadth of mathematics. These books range from very old to current. Some discuss beautiful proofs, whether math is invented or discovered, and how to think. Lee and Carol agree on the number one greatest book for mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike. Se…

1
Reflecting on Kaleidoscopes 20:18

10M ago20:18

20:18

Jeanne Lazzarini talks about kaleidoscopes and the mathematics that makes them work. This "beautiful form watcher" uses the laws of reflection to make ever-changing repeated symmetries. The use of more mirrors, rectangles, cylinders or pyramids create even more complex patterns.

1
Meet the young Davidson Fellowship winners 14:10

12M ago14:10

14:10

Ethan Zhao and Edward Yu are the winners in mathematics of the prestigious Davidson Fellow Scholarships, awarded based on projects completed by students under 18. Ethan's project was on learning models and Edward's was on combinatorics. It was math contests and the MIT Primes program that gave them the background to do original research in high sch…

1
Gödel's Incompleteness, Fundamental Truths, and Reasoning in Math and Law 22:07

1y ago22:07

22:07

Lawyer Lee Kraftchick discusses the search for truth and basic principles in the legal community and the surprising parallels and similarities with the same search in the math community. Mathematical and legal arguments follow a similar structure. Even the backwards way an argument is created is the same.…

1
Math and the Law 20:22

1y ago20:22

20:22

Lee Kraftchick, a lawyer with a math degree, discusses some of the surprising parallels between the fields. Math is used directly to make statistical arguments to rule out random chance as a cause. He gives examples from his experience in redistricting and affirmative action. Math is used indirectly in legal reasoning from what is known to justifie…

1
Fabulous Fibonacci 20:32

1y ago20:32

20:32

Jeanne Lazzarini looks for math in the real world and finds the Fibonacci sequence and the closely related Golden Ratio. These appear as we examine plants, bees, rabbits, flowers, fruit, and the human body. These natural patterns and pleasing symmetries find their way into the arts. Does nature understand math better than we do?…

1
Vowels and Sounds and a Little Calculus 11:38

1+ y ago11:38

11:38

Brian Katz, from California State University Long Beach, invites us to explore the various layers of ordinary sounds, informed by a little calculus. The limited frequencies that come out of the wave equation are what separates sounds that communicate (voice, music) from noise. These higher notes are in the sound itself and you can hear them (but al…

1
The Hat: A Newly Discovered "Ein-stein" Tessellation Tile 13:41

1+ y ago13:41

13:41

Jeanne Lazzarini, who has visited us before to talk about tessellations, discusses a new mathematical discovery that even earned a mention on Jimmy Kimmel. It's a shape that can be used to fill the plane with no gaps and no overlaps and, most remarkably, no repeating patterns.

1
Interfacing Music and Mathematics 21:12

1+ y ago21:12

21:12

Lawrence Udeigwe, associate professor of mathematics at Manhattan College and an MLK Visiting Associate Professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, is both a mathematician and a musician. We discuss his recent opinion piece in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society calling for "A Case for More Engagement" between the two areas, and …

1
Fourier Analysis: It's Not Just for Differential Equations 18:23

1+ y ago18:23

18:23

Joseph Bennish returns to dig into the math behind the Fourier Analysis we discussed last time. Specifically, it allows us to express any function in terms of sines and cosines. Fourier analysis appears in nature--our eyes and ears do it. It's used to study the distribution of primes, build JPEG files, read the structure of complicated molecules an…

1
Joseph Fourier, the Heat Equation and the Age of the Earth 17:32

1+ y ago17:32

17:32

Joseph Bennish, Professor Emeritus of California State University, Long Beach, joins us for an excursion into physics and some of the mathematics it inspired. Joseph Fourier straddled mathematics and physics. Here we focus on his heat equation, based on partial differential equations. Partial differential equations have broad applications. Fourier …

1
The Ten Most Important Theorems in Mathematics, Part II 15:37

1+ y ago15:37

15:37

Jim Stein, Professor Emeritus of CSULS, returns to complete his (admittedly subjective) list of the ten greatest math theorems of all time, with fascinating insights and anecdotes for each. Last time he did the runners up and numbers 8, 9 and 10. Here he completes numbers 1 through 7, again ranging over geometry, trig, calculus, probability, statis…

1
The Ten Most Important Theorems in Mathematics, Part I 25:24

2y ago25:24

25:24

Jim Stein, Professor Emeritus of CSULB, presents his very subjective list of what he believes are the ten most important theorems, with several runners up. These theorems cover a broad range of mathematics--geometry, calculus, foundations, combinatorics and more. Each is accompanied by background on the problems they solve, the mathematicians who d…

1
Surprisingly Better than 50-50 18:15

2y ago18:15

18:15

Jim Stein, Professor Emeritus of California State University Long Beach, discusses some bets that appear to be 50-50, but can have better odds with a tiny amount of seemingly useless information. Blackwell's Bet involves two envelopes of money. You can open only one. Which one do you choose? We learn about David Blackwell and his mathematical journ…

1
Fascinating Fractals 21:06

2y ago21:06

21:06

Jeanne Lazzarini joins us again to discuss fractals, a way to investigate the roughness that we see in nature, as opposed to the smoothness of standard mathematics. Fractals are built of iterated patterns with zoom similarity. Examples include the Koch Snowflake, which encloses a finite area but has infinite perimeter, and the Sierpinski Triangle, …

1
Approximation by Rationals: A New Focus 21:35

2y ago21:35

21:35

Joseph Bennish, Prof. Emeritus of CSULB, describes the field of Diophantine approximation, which started in the 19th Century with questions about how well irrational numbers can be approximated by rationals. It took Cantor and Lebesgue to develop new ways to talk about the sizes of infinite sets to give the 20th century new ways to think about it. …

1
Tessellations 20:47

2y ago20:47

20:47

Jeanne Lazzarini, a math education specialist, returns to discuss tessellations and tiling in the works of Escher, Penrose, ancient artists and nature. We go beyond the familiar square or hexagonal tilings of the bathroom floor. M.C. Escher was an artist who made tessellations with lizards or birds, as well as pictures of very strange stairways. Ro…

1
Rational, Irrational and Transcendental Numbers 21:48

2y ago21:48

21:48

Joseph Bennish returns to take us beyond the rational numbers we usually use to numbers that have been given names that indicate they're crazy or other-worldly. The Greeks were shocked to discover irrational numbers, violating their geometric view of the world. But later it was proved that any irrational number can be approximated remarkably well b…

1
Math as Art 18:42

2+ y ago18:42

18:42

Jeanne Lazzarini, a math education specialist, shares the connections between math, such as fractals and the golden ratio, and art. These are everywhere--nature, architecture, film and more. She shares hands-on mathematical activities that helped her students see math as an exploration and an art.

1
Exploration in Reading Mathematics 16:31

2+ y ago16:31

16:31

Lara Alcock of Loughborough University shares what she learned, by tracking eye movements, about how mathematicians and students differ in the ways they read mathematics. She developed a 10-15 minute exploration training, that increases students' comprehension through self-explanation. We also discuss the transition between procedural math and proo…

1
Games for Math Learning 19:18

2+ y ago19:18

19:18

Jon Goga, of Brainy Spinach Math, is using the Roblox gaming platform to bring math learning to kids using something they already enjoy. Along the way, he teaches them some techniques that are useful for mathematicians at any level--breaking down and building up a problem. We also discuss the "inchworm" and "grasshopper" styles of learning.…

1
The Power of Mathematical Storytelling 16:04

2+ y ago16:04

16:04

Sunil Singh, the author of Chasing Rabbits and other books, shares fascinating stories that show mathematics as a universal place of exploration and comfort. Stories of mathematical struggle and discovery in the classroom help students connect deeply with the topic, feel the passion, and see math as multi-cultural and class-free.…

1
The Mathematical World and the Physical World 11:55

2+ y ago11:55

11:55

Yusra Idichchou explores the question: Does math imitate life or does life imitate math? We touch on Oscar Wilde, philosophy of both math and language, how formal abstractions can describe the subjective physical world and various philosophies of mathematics.

1
Getting Athletes to Think Like Mathematicians 17:27

2+ y ago17:27

17:27

Caron Rivera, a math teacher at a school for elite athletes, shares how she breaks through the myth of the "math person" and teaches athletes to think like mathematicians. Her problem solving technique applies to anything. Through it her students get comfortable with not knowing, with the adventure of seeking the answer. They build their brains in …

1
The Art of Definitions 19:34

3y ago19:34

19:34

Brian Katz of CSULB joins us once again to discuss mathematical definitions. Students often see them as cast in stone. Prof. Katz helps them see that they're artifacts of human choices. The student has the power to create mathematics through definitions. This is illustrated by the definitions of "sandwich" and "approaching a limit." What makes a go…

1
Math Exploration for Kids 17:50

3y ago17:50

17:50

Mark Hendrickson, of Beast Academy Playground, talks about how to bring young kids into the joy, creativity and exploration that mathematicians experience. Kids enjoy art because they are free to try things and shun math for its apparent rigidness. He offers subtly mathematical games that invite even very young children to explore and question.…

1
Is Mathematics an Art? 12:10

3y ago12:10

12:10

Joshua Sack, mathematics professor at California State University, Long Beach, explores the breadth of art and mathematics and finds much commonality in patterns, emotions and more.

1
Math as a way of thinking 19:54

3y ago19:54

19:54

Ian Stewart, prolific author of popular books about math, discusses how math is the best way to think about the natural world. Often math developed for its own sake is later found useful for seemingly unrelated real-world problems. A silly little puzzle about islands and bridges leads eventually to a theory used for epidemics, transportation and ki…

1
Symmetries in 3 and 4 Dimensions 19:03

3y ago19:03

19:03

Joseph Bennish joins us once again to continue his discussion of symmetry, this time venturing into higher dimensions. We explore the complex symmetry groups of the Platonic solids and the sphere and their relationships. We then venture into the 4th dimension, where we see that, with a change to the distance the symmetries are maintaining, we get E…

1
Symmetry, Shapes and Groups 19:50

3y ago19:50

19:50

We are all born with an intuitive attraction to symmetry, through human faces and heartbeats. Joseph Bennish, of California State University Long Beach, explores the mathematical meaning of symmetry, what it means for one shape to be more symmetric than another, how symmetries form mathematical groups and groups form symmetries, and hints at implic…

1
Freshmen and Sophomores Confront Unsolved Problems 18:41

3+ y ago18:41

18:41

Dana Clahane, Professor of Mathematics at Fullerton College, dispels some of the misconceptions about mathematics and discusses some famous unsolved problems that he has freshmen and sophomores working on, learning what math is really about.

1
Stereotypes of Mathematics and Mathematicians 18:29

3+ y ago18:29

18:29

Will Murray, chair of the math department at California State University, Long Beach, discusses popular stereotypes of mathematicians and what they do when they do mathematics. Is it all lone geniuses generating big numbers? If so many people dislike mathematical thinking, why is Sudoku so popular?

1
Prime numbers and their surprising patterns 16:35

3+ y ago16:35

16:35

Joseph Bennish talks about prime numbers, a simple concept with surprising characteristics. Are they regular or random? This takes us into unexpected realms--calculus, complex numbers, Fourier transforms and "the music of the primes."

1
Creativity in Mathematics 18:20

3+ y ago18:20

18:20

Josh Hallam shares some of the ways he uses story writing and other creative endeavors in his math classes. He also discusses math in popular culture, including an original theorem in the animated show Futurama.

1
The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics 13:20

3+ y ago13:20

13:20

Saleem Watson discusses the mysterious way math predicts the natural world. Much of math is invented, and yet there are many examples of cases in which purely abstract math, developed with no reference to the natural world, later is found to make accurate and useful models and predictions of the physical world.…

1
Alternative Proofs and Why We Seek Them 17:08

3+ y ago17:08

17:08

Joseph Bennish discusses two famous theorems, proved long ago, and some modern alternative proofs. Why would we bother reproving something that was confirmed thousands of years ago? The answers are insight, aesthetics, and opening up surprising new areas of investigation.

1
Symmetry--It's More Than You Think 13:37

3+ y ago13:37

13:37

Scott Crass, Professor of Mathematics at CSULB, expands our vague intuition about symmetry to look at transformations of various kinds and what they leave fixed. This approach finds applications in physics, biology, art and several branches of math.

1
Is Math Discovered or Invented? 17:21

3+ y ago17:21

17:21

Saleem Watson, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, CSULB, confronts an ancient mathematical argument. Is math a body of eternal truths waiting for an explorer to uncover them, or an invention or work of art created by the human mind? Or some of each?

1
That's Impossible. Oh, Yeah? Prove It. 16:44

3+ y ago16:44

16:44

Paul Eklof, Professor Emeritus UCI, discusses the famous impossible straightedge-and-compass constructions of antiquity that have fascinated mathematicians and attracted cranks for centuries. There are infinitely many possible constructions. How can you prove not one of them will work?

1
The Joy of Mathematical Discovery 16:35

3+ y ago16:35

16:35

Joseph Bennish, math professor at California State University, Long Beach, discusses how math is an exploration involving imagination and excitement. Kids get this. Adults can recapture this by generalizing and questioning. For example, a simple barnyard riddle leads to questions about optics.

1
The Monty Hall Problem 14:26

3+ y ago14:26

14:26

You are a contestant on Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall. There are 3 identical doors. Behind only one is the prize car. You make your choice, then Monty Hall opens one of the other doors to reveal a goat and asks whether you want to change your choice. Should you, or does it matter? Paula Sloan talks about the counterintuitive answer, and h…

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