Choose Your Own Adventure — But Make It Math

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ever read those Choose Your Own Adventure books of the '80s and '90s? As a kid, mathematician Pamela Harris was hooked on them. Years later she realized how much those books have in common with her field, combinatorics, the branch of math concerned with counting. It, too, depends on thinking through endless, branching possibilities. So, she and several of her students set out to write a scholarly paper in the style of Choose Your Own Adventure books. In this encore episode, Dr. Harris tells host Regina G. Barber all about how the project began, how it gets complicated when you throw in wormholes and clowns, and why math is fundamentally a creative act.

Transcript

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0:18.6	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:30.2	Warning.
0:32.7	Your spaceship is crash landing on a forbidden planet.
0:36.2	Before you brace for impact,
0:38.2	you have just enough time to course correct
0:40.3	and land in one of two locations,
0:43.2	the toxic jungle to the west,
0:45.2	or the sunken sea to the east.
0:47.3	What's it gonna be?
0:48.5	Read onward or turn to page five and find out.
0:52.2	So remember those choose your own adventure books
0:54.7	of the 80s and 90s?
0:56.4	You know, the ones that had you exploring
0:58.4	far away planets or dark dungeons.
1:01.5	Well, for Dr. Pamela Harris,
	...

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