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Short Wave

Confessions Of A Math Convert

Short Wave

NPR

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

4.76K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Math is a complex, beautiful language that can help people understand the world. And sometimes math is hard! Science communicator Sadie Witkowski says the key to making math your friend is to foster your own curiosity and shed the fear of sounding dumb. That's the guiding principle behind her podcast, Carry the Two and it's today's show: Embracing all math has to offer without the fear of failure. We encore this episode in between Carry the Two's seasons - their second one starts on January 3, 2023!

This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact checked by Rachel Carlson. The audio engineer was Josh Newell.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey there, Shore Waivers.

0:01.3

Back in August, we talked with Sadie Wakowsky

0:03.8

about her math podcast, Carry the Two.

0:06.7

It's all about exploring the math

0:08.6

that sneaks into our everyday lives.

0:11.4

And she's launching season two on January 3rd

0:14.7

with a NASA-centered story.

0:17.3

So today, we're going to listen back

0:19.1

to our original episode in preparation for lift-off.

0:23.2

T minus 10 and counting.

0:26.7

You're listening to Shore Waive.

0:28.3

From NPR.

0:30.3

Growing up, Sadie Wakowsky did not consider herself a math kid.

0:35.3

In high school, I was sat between like a 12-year-old kid

0:39.3

who was in calculus, and a kid who was a couple years behind me,

0:42.3

and they compare quiz grades on my desk.

0:45.3

And there was like, what'd you get Sadie

0:47.3

and I had to hide my grade?

0:49.3

Because it was a B-plus, and I felt so bad about it.

0:52.3

And even though a B-plus is a fine grade,

0:54.3

she chose as many people do to avoid math.

0:58.3

And so I was like, I'll go into neuroscience.

...

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