Humble Pi: Enjoying When Math Goes Awry

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2022

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over the last 24 hours, some of us Short Wavers celebrated Pi Day the only way we know how: eating some yummy pie and thinking math thoughts. Here on the show, many of us are math enthusiasts. But none of us claims to be a math perfectionist. We think there's at least as much joy and insight in the mistakes as there is in what we get right. It's a lesson we discussed in today's episode about Matt Parker's book, Humble Pi. It's an oldie but a goodie from our archives.We hope it inspires you to continue to celebrate pi and math everyday.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Duterina's Emily Quang here.
0:02.5	So yesterday, some of us short waivers celebrated Pi Day.
0:07.0	March 14th, 3.14, the only way we know how.
0:11.3	Eating some yummy pie, obviously, and thinking math thoughts.
0:15.2	Like, how the new decade starts on the one, not on the zero,
0:19.2	which some of us realized only when there was a massive debate about it in 2020.
0:23.6	I digress.
0:24.6	My point is, is that here on the show, many of us are math enthusiasts.
0:29.0	None of us is a math perfectionist.
0:31.7	We think there's at least as much joy and insight in the mistakes as there is in what we get right.
0:37.2	A lesson we discussed in today's episode, all about Matt Parker's book, Humble Pie.
0:43.2	Now, this isn't oldie from the shortwave archives, but a goodie.
0:47.7	We hope it inspires you to continue to celebrate Pi and Math every day.
0:53.5	Enjoy.
0:54.8	You're listening to shortwave.
0:56.1	For MNPR.
0:59.7	Mattie, so if I hear with a math problem, don't be scared.
1:04.4	Say you're trying to build a fence 50 feet long, and you need a post every 10 feet.
1:10.7	How many posts do you need?
1:13.5	Got your answer?
1:14.8	Okay, just hold that in your head for a second while we introduce Matt Parker.
1:19.6	Oh, hey, can you hear me coming through?
	...

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