Today we're talking with set theorist Asaf Karagila.

He's based in the English city of Norwich, working at the University of East Anglia.

There his research involves exploring the mind-bending world of infinities.

But before we get to these lofty concepts, let's start in the desert

and an unconventional route to academia. So I'm originally from Israel. I grew up in the desert,

so it's a small town outside Bercheva, very hot, very dry. But there were some forests nearby, so it's just kind of very nice and pluralized kind of background. When you grow up in the desert, is it like, how is your childhood different from people who don't grow up in the desert? Like, do you have, do you play different games and do different things as a boy? No, it's just hotter and you get used to this very intense dry heat.

That's the main difference.

What were you into as a boy?

Like when you were a young boy, what were your obsessions?

Were you obsessed with sport or were you already obsessed with mathematics?

When I was like six or seven, I love dinosaurs, you know, and then it moved to like fighter jets and birds

and stuff like this. But my father tells a story and, you know, it's not that reliable every time

I get younger in the story that, you know, when I was like four or something, I already knew that

if you have like one tile on the floor, then you have half and you have a quarter and that you can always break it to half.

So this kind of understanding of infinity, I always had like a little bit of math in this.

My father, who's not a mathematician at all, you know, when I was six, we would sit and he would show me how to do long multiplication and long division and just give me

numbers and I would play with it. So mostly I was encouraged to be curious. What did you want to be

when you grew up? Like if I'd said to the little boy, hey, what job would you want to do when you're

an adult? I don't know. I don't think I comprehended the idea of being an adult, even, you know.

I was convinced that, you know, I couldn't see life beyond like 17 or something.

Not that I'm going to die, but like that didn't exist.

Yeah.

...