How to Count to Infinity & Why People Believe in Aliens and Other Unbelievable Things

Something You Should Know

Mike Carruthers | OmniCastMedia

Education, Social Sciences, Self-improvement, Science, Health & Fitness

4.5 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You already know it is important to drink water to stay healthy. And it also appears that drinking water can make you smarter, too. How? This episode begins by explaining how and you may find the answer quite surprising. http://www.eatingwell.com/blogs/health_blog/does_drinking_water_make_you_smarter_plus_6_benefits_of_staying_hydrated We all learned to count when we were young. Yet, it took a long time and a lot of differing theories about numbers and counting to get us to the simple ability of count things and people the way we do. Marcus du Sautoy is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and author of the book How to Count to Infinity (https://amzn.to/3hCTgV6). He joins me to explain the extraordinary history of counting including why the invention of zero was so important and what infinity really is. People who use online dating usually have a photo as part of their profile. And a lot of people need to replace the picture they have if they want to get people to respond. Listen as I explain what makes a good profile photo – and what doesn’t. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/online-dating-profile-picture-research/ Why do so many people believe in aliens, UFO’s, Big Foot and conspiracy theories? While the evidence for these things is usually sparse, the number of people who truly believe in them is significant. Cultural historian Colin Dickey decided to explore why. Why do people believe in things that don’t really have a logical explanation or objective proof? Colin is author of the book The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained (https://amzn.to/32VmaLO) and he joins me to share his unique insight into this phenomenon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today on something you should know, how does drinking water make you smarter?
0:06.3	I'll explain that.
0:07.7	Then, creating numbers and learning how to count completely changed our world.
0:13.0	As did the concept of infinity.
0:15.0	You know, there is no biggest number.
0:17.0	Actually, one of my favorite jokes is the mathematics teacher who asks the class, you
0:20.9	know, what's the biggest number and somebody puts up their hand and says a billion and
0:25.1	one and the teacher goes, well, what about a billion and two?
0:28.9	And the student says, well, I was very close.
0:31.9	Also today, if you have an online dating profile, you probably need to change your picture.
0:37.4	And why do people believe in big foot and aliens and conspiracy theories?
0:42.0	Years ago, I used to pick fights with people on Facebook who would, you know, post conspiracy
0:45.8	theories and I would correct them by giving them the factual truth.
0:48.8	And if you've ever done that, you find out that that actually rarely works.
0:51.9	You know, what's driving people to cling to these ideas usually has very little to do
0:55.9	with the facts.
0:57.1	All this today on something you should know.
1:03.1	Something you should know.
1:04.6	Fascinating intel.
1:05.6	The world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today.
1:12.2	Something you should know with my carothers.
1:14.6	Hi.
	...

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