Prime numbers and their surprising patterns
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 transfo...
2 Juni 202116min
Creativity in Mathematics
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 sho...
19 Maj 202118min
The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics
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 referenc...
5 Maj 202113min
Alternative Proofs and Why We Seek Them
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 in...
21 Apr 202117min
Symmetry--It's More Than You Think
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 ph...
7 Apr 202113min
Is Math Discovered or Invented?
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 o...
24 Mars 202117min
That's Impossible. Oh, Yeah? Prove It.
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 ar...
10 Mars 202116min
The Joy of Mathematical Discovery
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 genera...
24 Feb 202116min
