Yesterday, I was asked by Mariana Farinha for podcasts I would recommend to a college student of Mathematics. I assume this is college in the American sense, i.e. university. Though targetting an audience is usually a broad business, so with a suitable margin of error I replied with a few, retweeted the request and a few others replied. Here are the suggestions. What would you recommend? Leave a comment!
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Peter Rowlett: Viva Survivor
I am interviewed about my PhD research and my experience of the viva in the new episode of the Viva Survivors podcast. This podcast, by Nathan Ryder (@DrRyder), interviews PhD graduates about their research, the viva and life afterwards.
Relatively Prime is done
This is the first Monday in quite a while that I haven’t had a new episode of Relatively Prime to listen to. That’s because all eight episodes have now been released. I meant to put a little post up each week reminding you to listen to the latest episode, but I completely forgot to do that, so here’s a post saying you can now listen to the whole lot. And you should.
I told you so: Relatively Prime has begun
Do you remember when I told you why I supported Relatively Prime and you should too? I said:
Samuel is an enthusiastic communicator of mathematics and has the technical skills to make an excellent producer of content. You may have enjoyed what he does as my co-host on the Math/Maths Podcast, or his interview show Strongly Connected Components, or his irreverent maths chat show Combinations and Permutations. Much as these are good outputs, they all have an element of being as good as they be in spare time. I don’t know about you, but of the two options on his crossroads I would like to live in a world where Samuel can take his enthusiasm and technical expertise and spend some serious time concerning himself with mathematics communication.
Well, now is my chance to say “I told you so”. Following that amazing day when I told you that next time you wake up, Relatively Prime will be a missed opportunity unless you act, 159 people donated to make the project a reality and Samuel has spent 11 months doing the work: travelling the world, recording interviews and editing (so much editing).
Now he has released the first episode of this eight-part audio documentary series. And it’s good!
The Toolbox
The mathematics that we all learn in school is great. No, really, it is. How can anyone get through life without knowing how to add or subtract. Multiply or divide. Solve for an unknown or factor a polynomial. OK, you might be able to get through life without that last one, but the point still stands, the mathematics that we all learn in school is great. It isn’t everything though. There are a lot of other tools that mathematics has to offer that could enrich people’s lives. On this episode Samuel Hansen rummages through his mathematical tool box and showcases three tools he feel are going to be very important in the coming years.
The series will run until 5th November, with a new episode being released every Monday. (And I hear the completion of his achievement will be marked with national fireworks.) The show is available to download directly at the show’s website, but don’t forget to subscribe through iTunes or through the RSS Feed.
Plus it’s a chance to check how well he stuck to those hints he gave about Relatively Prime content, and tease him about the inevitable changes of plan!
Relatively Prime, All in a Name
“Prime. Prime? Prime! Prime factors, twin primes, pseudo-primes? No, no no. Relatively Prime? Yes, Relatively Prime.”
I have a problem, no matter how good an idea I have I can not start to work on it until I have a name. Some names are easy, Combination and Permutations was a name well before I ever had a show to use it, Science Sparring Society followed directly from the concept, and ACMEScience NEWS NOW actually told me what type of show I would be making. Other names are hard.
I had the underlying idea for Relatively Prime (get the first episode here) in an extreme bout of egotism and delusion of grandeur where I spent too long listening to Radio Lab, This American Life, and Snap Judgment and began to think, “Hey, I could do that, but for math.”