The math behind your daily annoyances

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2026

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the mystery of why elevator waits feel endless to the surprisingly tricky problem of splitting a pizza (or even a sandwich) fairly, this episode explores how math shapes everyday experiences in ways you might not expect. Host Rachel Feltman talks with physicist and editor Manon Bischoff about what hidden patterns lie behind daily frustrations, how shuffling a deck of cards involves mind‑bending odds and why math isn’t just for geniuses—it’s for anyone curious about how the world works. Recommended Reading: Mathematicians found out why waiting for the elevator takes forever The mathematically correct way to slice a pizza The humble ham sandwich inspired a math theorem for sharing food fairly E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura, with fact-checking by Aaron Shattuck and Shayna Posses. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Some follow the noise.
0:03.0	Bloomberg follows the money,
0:04.8	whether it's the funds fueling AI
0:06.4	or crypto's trillion dollar swings.
0:08.9	There's a money side to every story.
0:11.4	Get the money side of the story.
0:13.5	Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.
0:19.8	Music For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
0:34.9	If you love math, I'm Rachel Feldman.
0:44.9	If you love math, you're probably already subscribed to Scientific Americans' weekly newsletter, Proof Positive. But if you were under the impression that you don't love math,
0:50.1	proof positive might just be able to prove you wrong. Here to give us a taste of some of the surprising and delightful stories you'll find in
0:57.9	proof positive is Menon Bischoff.
1:00.5	Menon is a theoretical physicist and an editor at Spectrum, the German-language sister
1:04.8	publication of Scientific American.
1:07.1	Thank you so much for coming on to chat with us today.
1:09.4	Thank you for inviting me.
1:10.7	So one of the things that you cover in your newsletter is how Thank you so much for coming on to chat with us today. Thank you for inviting me.
1:17.9	So one of the things that you cover in your newsletter is how math impacts our everyday lives.
1:25.6	One recent example is that mathematicians figured out why waiting for the elevator can seem to take forever, which is very relevant to my life.
1:29.5	My building is two elevators and one of them is currently out of commission.
1:32.7	So can you tell us more about how that experiment worked?
1:38.7	Yeah, so you just described it. You press the elevator button and you're hoping to go down or up or whatever.
	...

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