meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Science Quickly

The Hidden Secrets of Math: Beauty and Power (Part 1)

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mathematics communicator and drag queen Kyne Santos will help you discover the beauty and power of math in this three-part Friday miniseries. Kyne takes us back to ancient Greece to illustrate the elegance of mathematics. We meet mathematician Tom Crawford, who combines fieldwork and modeling to predict the impacts of pollution, as well as philosopher and logician Mark Jago.  Recommended reading: – Gift Wrapping Five Oranges Has Outwitted the Best Minds in Mathematics for Generations – The SAT Problem That Everybody Got Wrong E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman and Kyne Santos. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Shayna Posses, Emily Makowski and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years. Yacold also

0:11.5

partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for

0:16.6

gut health, an investigator-led research program. To learn more about Yachtold, visit yacult.co.com.j, that's y-A-K-U-L-T-C-O-J-P.

0:28.3

When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacult.

0:35.7

When Tom Crawford climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and stood 5,895 meters above sea level,

0:43.3

he was astounded by the natural beauty of the view. Who wouldn't be?

0:48.3

But unlike most climbers, Tom had something else on his mind too, math.

0:57.8

If I can see another peak in the distance in my head, I'm like,

1:02.7

I wonder if I could like calculate the height of that based on, you know, the angle I'm at and the distance.

1:03.9

He doesn't actually crunch those numbers.

1:06.5

But as a mathematician at the University of Oxford, Tom's instinct is always to translate the world

1:12.1

around him into patterns and numbers. In other words, to turn mountains into math.

1:17.9

For me, the beauty is you can apply maths to absolutely anything. Give me any situation, any problem, any set of data, and you can use maths

1:31.0

to try to understand what's happening. And that, to me, is the beautiful aspect of it.

1:35.9

For science quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman. And today I'm joined by the world's favorite math

1:40.9

teaching drag queen, Kynne Santos. For the next few Fridays, she'll be taking over

1:45.4

our feed to talk about, you guessed it, math. Kind, I have to admit, I've never been much of a

1:53.1

math lover myself, so should I be worried? Not at all. I promise you'll find something to love about

1:59.9

math in this series, whether it was

2:02.0

your favorite subject in school or it's the absolute bane of your existence. That is a tall

2:07.1

order, but I can't think of anyone more up to the task. And from what your friend Tom just

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scientific American, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scientific American and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.