174 | Tai-Danae Bradley on Algebra, Topology, Language, and Entropy

174 | Tai-Danae Bradley on Algebra, Topology, Language, and Entropy

Mathematics is often thought of as the pinnacle of crisp precision: the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle isn't "roughly" the sum of the squares of the other two sides, it's exactly that. But we live in a world of messy imprecision, and increasingly we need sophisticated techniques to quantify and deal with approximate statistical relations rather than perfect ones. Modern mathematicians have noticed, and are taking up the challenge. Tai-Danae Bradley is a mathematician who employs very high-level ideas — category theory, topology, quantum probability theory — to analyze real-world phenomena like the structure of natural-language speech. We explore a number of cool ideas and what kinds of places they are leading us to.

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Tai-Danae Bradley received her Ph.D. in mathematics from the CUNY Graduate Center. She is currently a research mathematician at Alphabet, visiting research professor of mathematics at The Master's University, and executive director of the Math3ma Institute. She hosts an explanatory mathematics blog, Math3ma. She is the co-author of the graduate-level textbook Topology: A Categorical Approach.


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31 | Brian Greene on the Multiverse, Inflation, and the String Theory Landscape

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30 | Derek Leben on Ethics for Robots and Artificial Intelligences

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It's hardly news that computers are exerting ever more influence over our lives. And we're beginning to see the first glimmers of some kind of artificial intelligence: computer programs have become mu...

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29 | Raychelle Burks on the Chemistry of Murder

29 | Raychelle Burks on the Chemistry of Murder

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14 Tammi 20191h 15min

28 | Roger Penrose on Spacetime, Consciousness, and the Universe

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7 Tammi 20191h 35min

Holiday Message 2018

Holiday Message 2018

There won't be any regular episodes of Mindscape this week or next, as we take a holiday break. Regular service will resume on Monday January 7, 2019. In the meantime, here is a special Holiday Messag...

24 Joulu 201844min

27 | Janna Levin on Black Holes, Chaos, and the Narrative of Science

27 | Janna Levin on Black Holes, Chaos, and the Narrative of Science

It's a big universe out there, full of an astonishing variety of questions and puzzles. Today's guest, Janna Levin, is a physicist who has delved into some of the trippiest aspects of cosmology and gr...

17 Joulu 20181h 8min

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