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When I was in high school, I wanted to be a singer and I dreamed of also being an astrophysicist.

I didn't think they were compatible.

I had to pick one, right?

But maybe I didn't.

I've loved math ever since I can remember.

Like even when I was little, when I was like four or five I just

always love doing puzzles, always love doing like little math workbooks and I could literally just like

hang out in my room for like five six seven

eight hours on the weekend and just do that and just completely lose track of time.

Dr. John Urshle is a mathematician and a professor at MIT. But before that he was a football player.

I got offered a scholarship to play college football at Penn State University which is like a football powerhouse for those people who know American

football.

And so I was simultaneously falling in love with math as an actual career, taking all of these college math classes,

while also trying to be the best football player I could be.

He now works on a type of math called linear algebra, solving equations like Y plus X equals 3 and X

minus Y equals negative 1, where you can solve what the same y and x would be for both. Go ahead and pause the episode if you want to

solve it yourself. Otherwise, a solution is x equals one and y equals two. So

those two equations can represent lines on a grid.

And so you can find the solution by moving one space in the x direction and then moving up two

spaces in the y, which gives you the point where these two lines intersect.

But this is just two simple equations. Things get more

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