New Books Network
Mathematics
Mathematics August 30, 2021

Math Tricks

The Surprising Wonders of Shapes and Numbers

Alfred S. Posamentier

Hosted by Jim Stein
Alfred S. Posamentier's Math Tricks: The Surprising Wonders of Shapes and Numbers (Prometheus Books, 2021) has a lovely assortment of puzzles from all areas of mathematics. Some will be familiar to …

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Mathematics August 26, 2021

Math Renaissance

Growing Math Circles, Changing Classrooms, and Creating Sustainable Math Education

Rachel Steinig and Rodi Steinig

Hosted by Cory Brunson
Math Renaissance: Growing Math Circles, Changing Classrooms, and Creating Sustainable Math Education (Natural Math, 2018) couples two educational memoirs: Student Rachel Steinig brings her experience from diverse schooling models, surveys of …
Science August 10, 2021

Mage Merlin's Unsolved Mathematical Mysteries

Satyan Devadoss and Matt Harvey

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Sixteen of today's greatest unsolved mathematical puzzles in a story-driven, illustrated volume that invites readers to peek over the edge of the unknown. Most people think of mathematics as a …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast August 9, 2021

Cryptoreality

Artur Ekert

Hosted by Howard Burton
Cryptoreality is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Artur Ekert, Professor of Quantum Physics at the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford and Director of …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast August 6, 2021

Pushing the Boundaries

Freeman Dyson

Hosted by Howard Burton
Pushing the Boundaries is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and former mathematical physicist and writer Freeman Dyson, who was one of the most celebrated polymaths of …
Mathematics July 30, 2021

What Is a Complex System?

James Ladyman and K. Wiesner

Hosted by Cory Brunson
While i find it pretty easy to recognize when i'm reading articles in complexity science, i've never been satisfied by definitions of complexity and related concepts. I'm not alone! Researchers' …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast July 22, 2021

Plato’s Heaven

A User’s Guide

James Robert Brown

Hosted by Howard Burton
Plato’s Heaven: A User’s Guide is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and James Robert Brown, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. This wide-ranging …
Mathematics May 31, 2021

Innumeracy in the Wild

Misunderstanding and Misusing Numbers

Ellen Peters

Hosted by Cory Brunson
To many mathematicians and math enthusiasts, the word "innumeracy" brings to mind popular writing like that of John Allen Paulos. But inequities in our quantitative reasoning skills have received considerable …
Mathematics April 27, 2021

Inspiring Mathematics

Lessons from the Navajo Nation Math Circles

Dave Auckly, Bob Klein, Amanda Serenevy, Tatiana Shubin

Hosted by Cory Brunson
Math circles defy simple narratives. The model was introduced a century ago, and is taking off in the present day thanks in part to its congruence with cutting-edge research in …
Scholarly Communication April 14, 2021

Writing Science in the Twenty-First Century

Christopher Thaiss

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of Christopher Thaiss, author of Writing Science in the Twenty-First Century (Broadview Press 2019). We talk about the research article, about writing styles, and about the …
Mathematics April 2, 2021

The Raven's Hat

Fallen Pictures, Rising Sequences, and Other Mathematical Games

Jonas Peters and Nicolai Meinshausen

Hosted by Jim Stein
Games have been of interest to mathematicians almost since mathematics became a subject. In fact, entire branches of mathematics have arisen simply to analyze certain games. The Raven's Hat: Fallen …
Asian Review of Books April 1, 2021

x + y

A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender

Eugenia Cheng

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
From its more mainstream, business-focused and business-friendly “Lean In” variants, to more radical, critical and intersectional understandings of feminism, the past decade has seen a flourishing of discussion from those …
Mathematics February 22, 2021

Math Without Numbers

Milo Beckman

Hosted by Jim Stein
One of the questions I am often asked is exactly what do mathematicians do. The short answer is that they look at different mathematical structures, try to deduce their properties …
Mathematics January 25, 2021

Games for Your Mind

The History and Future of Logic Puzzles

Jason Rosenhouse

Hosted by Jim Stein
Jason Rosenhouse's Games for Your Mind: The History and Future of Logic Puzzles (Princeton UP, 2020) is about a panoply of logic puzzles. You’ll find Mastermind and sudoku discussed early on, and …
Mathematics January 8, 2021

A New Year's Present from a Mathematician

Snezana Lawrence

Hosted by Cory Brunson
It would be simple enough to say that mathematics is being done, and that those who do it are mathematicians. Yet, the history and culture of the mathematical community immediately …
Mathematics December 7, 2020

The Fate of Schrodinger's Cat

Using Math and Computers to Explore the Counterintuitive

James D. Stein

Hosted by Cory Brunson
Math has a complicated relationship with the counterintuitive: Rigorous logic, calculation, and simulation can both help us wrap our minds around phenomena that defy our intuition, and thrust upon us whole new worlds …
Mathematics December 1, 2020

Supermath

The Power of Numbers for Good and Evil

Anna Weltman

Hosted by Cory Brunson
Mathematics as a subject is distinctive in its symbolic abstraction and its potential for logical and computational rigor. But mathematicians tend to impute other qualities to our subject that set …
Mathematics November 11, 2020

The Joy of Geometry

Alfred S. Posamentier

Hosted by Jim Stein
Alfred S. Posamentier's The Joy of Geometry (Prometheus, 2020) is a book for someone who has taken geometry but wants to go further. This book, as one might expect, is …
Mathematics September 29, 2020

How to Free Your Inner Mathematician

Notes on Mathematics and Life

Susan D'Agostino

Hosted by Cory Brunson
Doing mathematics can be stimulating, deep, and sometimes fantastic. It can also be frustrating, impenetrable, and at times dispiriting. In her new collection of essays, writer and mathematician Susan D'Agostino …
Mathematics September 9, 2020

Mathematics Entertainment for the Millions

Alfred Posamentier

Hosted by Jim Stein
The book being discussed is Mathematics Entertainment for the Millions (World Scientific Publishing Co.), by Alfred Posamentier. In reading this book, it occurred to me that it might equally well …