Sure, two plus two equals four, but is that all there is to math?

It's not always just about getting the right answers, but it's about asking the right questions and exploring possible answers.

It's Monday, January 1st. Happy New Year, but it's also Science Friday.

I'm sci-fri producer Shoshana Bucksbaum. Math is based on a lot of abstract concepts.

For example, math has not one, but many infinities. And scientists use it all the time to describe nature.

But how do we know it describes, well, the real world?

Mathematician Eugenia Chang wrote a book grappling with the question,

Is Math Real?

Here's Ira Flato.

The concept of math has been around for a long time.

You know that 3,000 years ago.

The Egyptians were using fractions.

Geometry was used in ancient Greece.

And negative numbers were invented in China around 200 BC.

I've always found it fascinating that different cultures develop mathematics, and ultimately that

knowledge was shared with the rest of the world. But you know what? There's an underlying question

to all of this. If math is largely made up of abstract concepts, how do we know that it's real?

I mean, what does real mean anyway? My next guest wrote a whole book grappling with

this question, and she's here with us now. Dr. Eugenia Chang, mathematician and author of, is math

real? How simple questions lead us to mathematics deepest truths. She's joining me now from Chicago.

Welcome back to Science Friday. Thank you so much.

It's great to be back. That's a weird question to ask is math real? Why do you even ask that

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