Eugenia Cheng on the mathematics of mathematics
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2018
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nothing annoys Eugenia Cheng more than the suggestion that there is no creativity in mathematics. Doing mathematics is not about being a human calculator, she says. She doesn't spend her time multiplying big numbers in her head. She sits in hotel bars drawing (mainly arrows) with a fine quill pen, thinking about how ideas from different areas of mathematics relate to one another and hoping to reveal a unifying, underlying logic to the whole of mathematics. Her area of research, Category Theory, makes algebra seem superficial. And if that makes your head hurt a little, don't worry. Feeling confused is an essential part of doing mathematics. 'You can't make progress without it' Eugenia says. Jim asks Eugenia what drove her to such a high level of abstraction and learns more about her mission to rid the world of maths phobia, by baking.
Producer: Anna Buckley
Photo credit: Paul Crisanti, PhotoGetGo.
Transcript
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| 0:33.0 | Eugenia Cheng is a Star Baker, concert pianist and most importantly mathematician. |
| 0:41.0 | Eugenia studies an area of mathematics so abstract that even some of her fellow mathematicians |
| 0:46.5 | think she goes a bit too far. |
| 0:48.3 | Category theory, sometimes known as the mathematics of mathematics, Studies the relationship between different areas of maths. |
| 0:56.0 | A few years ago she left a secure academic post at the University of Sheffield |
| 1:00.0 | so that she could focus on communicating mathematical ideas to the widest possible audience, |
| 1:04.7 | while she continues her research into higher dimensional category theory. |
| 1:09.3 | She's currently scientists and residents at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. |
| 1:14.0 | Eugenia Cheng, welcome to the Life Scientific. |
| 1:16.4 | Hello, thanks for having me. |
| 1:18.0 | It seems to me that you're on a mission to rid the world of math's phobia. |
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