4.7 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2020
⏱️ 12 minutes
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0:00.0 | Hey, a quick reminder to subscribe to the show, so you get new episodes as soon as they're available. |
0:06.0 | That will be especially useful tomorrow. We're bringing you an update on the latest coronavirus |
0:10.4 | news and science, which we'll be doing more often in the coming weeks as well. Okay? Okay. |
0:17.6 | You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. |
0:22.5 | Maddie's if I hear with a math problem, don't be scared. Say you're trying to build a fence |
0:29.0 | 50 feet long and you need to post every 10 feet. How many posts do you need? |
0:36.2 | Got your answer? Okay, just hold that in your head for a second while we introduce Matt Parker. |
0:42.3 | Oh, hey, can you hear me coming through? Yeah, Matt's kind of like, can you hear me? |
0:46.0 | Part comedian. Hey, Maddie, yes I can. Part math nerd. Matt, how should we describe what you do? |
0:52.7 | That's a great question. I go with, you sound like my accountant. I go with, I have stand-up |
0:57.9 | mathematician. So I'm probably a mathematician first in a comedian second. Matt's got a big |
1:04.3 | YouTube channel. He's an author. He works with schools all trying to blend math and comedy. |
1:10.8 | Here is a timely example. So I've done stuff like I've used a pendulum. In fact, I swung a baked pie |
1:18.4 | from a piece of string and the way you calculate how long something takes to swing back |
1:24.0 | and forwards. That calculation has the mathematical number, pie in it. |
1:28.9 | Pie, of course, is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, which calculates to |
1:35.2 | 3.141592653589. We love it because it appears in unexpected places. You'll be doing some |
1:44.8 | completely unrelated mathematics and suddenly pies there. And we celebrate pie day every year |
1:52.6 | on March 14th. But the kind of pie we're focused on today is humble pie. The kind you eat when |
2:00.3 | you make a mistake, which brings us back to that math problem in a 50-foot fence, |
2:06.0 | opposed every 10 feet. How many posts? And people listening are now thinking, oh okay, 50 feet, |
2:11.6 | one every 10 foot, then there must be five. We can all divide 50 by 10. Actually, you need six. |
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