The Math Club

In our last episode, Linear Thinking, Pete mentioned that one practical application of linear algebra is in the field of urban planning and traffic flow.  Here's a video bonus to illustrate how a linear system of equations can be created from traffic data.

In this episode, Pete and Noah tackle an “unsolvable math problem” that appeared in a recent Newsweek article (Spoiler: It's not that unsolvable). Join us as we apply linear algebra to this puzzle from start to Finnish.

• The Newsweek article

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

In this episode, Pete and Noah explore the question, "Can AI do math?" Armed with several boxes of Chicken McNuggets, they put ChatGPT to the test, scrutinizing its mathematical prowess and giggling over how bad its attempts sometimes are. Join them as they investigate just how far the digital mind can go in mastering the realm of numbers.

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

A somewhat traumatic memory about fifth grade timed multiplication tests inspires Pete and Noah to have a conversation with Dr. Juli Dixon, author of a brand new program for teaching math facts fluency without all of the anxiety.  Join us for our most factacular episode to date!

• Dr. Dixon’s DNA Math website

• Find Dr. Dixon on Twitter

• The Fact Tactics Fluency Program book

• Request availability for Dr. Dixon

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

What do you get if you cross 11,520 isosceles triangles with the happiest place on Earth? The Epcot ball, of course, which is perhaps the most famous geodesic structure in the world. Join Pete and Noah as they investigate these incredibly sturdy mathematical objects… and make sure to wear your clam diggers!

• Picture of the geodesic dome at the Dalí Museum in Figueres, Spain

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

Pete is back, and Noah is eager to hear about his trip and record a new episode about an interesting bit of European math.  Join us for some zero-based counting, inspired by an elevator that Pete rode on his first day in Spain.

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

We’ve spoken with previous guests about classroom math instruction, as well as how to help students with learning disabilities in mathematics.  But what about the enormous middle ground of students who need extra help, but don’t qualify for special education services?  In this episode we’re joined by Jonathan Bleecker, owner of a Mathnasium learning center, for an engaging conversation about how math tutors help to fill in those gaps.

• Contact Livermore Mathnasium

• Mathnasium’s website

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

In this episode, the search for a temporary co-host to sub for Pete turns into a conversation about mathematical substitutions.  Join Noah and (the other) Pete as they talk about this powerful strategy, and why being manipulative can be a good thing when you’re doing math.

• Link to this episode's puzzle

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

With Pete away on vacation, Noah invites a panel of educators over for a lively conversation about mathematics instruction.  Join us as the panel discusses their early days in the classroom, how math education has changed over the past few decades, and what changes they’d like to see in the future. 

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

An idea for a new ice cream treat leads Pete and Noah to discuss the different conic sections that can be created by intersecting a cone with a plane at various angles.  Grab a flashlight and get ready to shine a (cone-shaped) light on these interesting geometric creations with us.

• Image of the four non-degenerate conic sections

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

You’ve probably seen people arguing on social media about memes that say: “Only a true genius will get this one right”, followed by a simple looking expression to evaluate.  In this episode, a mathematical miscalculation inspires a conversation about math conventions, order of operations, and being careful before placing a delivery order.  And the best news is, you don’t have to be a true genius to enjoy this episode!

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

In our last episode, Pete walked Noah through a calculation (using Newton's Law of Cooling) to predict what the temperature of a hot cup of water would be 10 minutes later.  Here's a video bonus to help follow along with the calculations they made.

After Pete spills a cup of hot coffee, he and Noah conduct an experiment to test Newton’s Law of Cooling, a physical law that describes the rate at which warm objects cool down. Along the way, they discuss differential equations, exponential functions, and the proper way to sit after getting in a hot tub. This may be the hottest episode of the Math Club yet!

• Photo of our experiment setup

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

Have you ever engaged in some friendly smack-talk during a sporting event? In this episode, Pete and Noah are on the receiving end of a lot of teasing out on the softball field. After the game, they analyze this kind of interaction and use a clever thought experiment to shed light on an important issue of social equality.

• Karen Petri’s video - Why attacks on sexism are not attacks on men

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

We all know people who describe themselves as “not a math person”.  For many of them it’s not simply a preference, but a neurological condition.  In this episode, Pete and Noah speak with Dr. Anneke Schreuder about dyscalculia, the lesser-known mathematical counterpart to dyslexia.  Join us for an eye-opening conversation as we learn what it is and how it can be identified and treated.

• https://dyscalculiaservices.com/

• Dyscalculia Headlines

• Free dyscalculia screener

• Become a dyscalculia tutor

• Leave us a voice message

• Find us on Twitter

• Send us an email

The Beach Boys are famous for "getting around", but do you know that the number one gets around a lot, too?  In this episode, one takes center stage as Pete and Noah take a central look at some of the places, both exotic and familiar, that one gets around to. This is "one" episode you don't want to miss!

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Happy birthday… to us!  The Math Club is one year old today, and Pete and Noah are celebrating with a fun-filled discussion of the birthday paradox. Come join the celebration - you might be surprised where it takes you!

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

How much do you think you spent on gas when you took your last road trip?  If you live in the United States, chances are that would make you think about your car's miles per gallon.  But in other parts of the world, fuel effieciency is measured not in MPG, but in gallons per hundred miles.  In this epsiode, Pete and Noah examine this fraction-flipping phenomenon, and weigh in on which version they like better.  So hop in the car and get ready to go for a ride with the Math Club.

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

If we gave you a bunch of positive whole numbers and asked what you get when you add them all up, you’d have a pretty easy time of it...  you are The Math Club, after all.  But what if we gave you an infinite series of positive whole numbers and asked you what you get when you add them all up?  In this episode, Pete and Noah talk about how mathematicians go about assigning a value in this seemingly impossible situation.  Join us and learn about divergent series, and be ready to be surprised by some of the results.

• The Numberphile video

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

If you ever took a geometry class, you probably had to do some mathematical proofs.  From the ancient Greeks to modern day mathematicians, proofs have played a vital role in advancing our understanding of the world around us.  In this episode, Pete and Noah talk about their own experiences with proofs and look at several different kinds of proof along the way.  Hop aboard the math train, and join us in an exploration of the fascinating world of mathematical proofs. 

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

This week Pete and Noah team up with Shane and Mealey from the Unprofessional Development podcast, a show that features guests from the world of education sharing their stories about teaching.  This joint episode finds the four hosts discussing teaching, math, teaching math, and spicy foods.  

• Unprofessional Development Podcast • Follow @unprocast on Twitter

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

When you think about parts of a whole, you probably picture fractions that consist of a numerator and a denominator.  But that’s not how all cultures throughout history worked with fractional parts.  In this episode, Pete and Noah visit ancient Egypt and discuss the completely different way their mathematicians showed parts of a whole.  Plus, there's a puzzle about camels!

• Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

In September of 1990, Parade Magazine columnist Marilyn vos Savant answered a reader’s question about a mathematical brain teaser, and received quite the backlash when most of the math community thought her solution was incorrect.  Just about three years later, two new friends (and future Math Club hosts) bonded over math for the first time, discussing and debating this exact same puzzle.  In this episode, Pete and Noah weave the two stories together into an interesting discussion about conditional probability, counterintuitive results, and being gracious when confronted with, what you believe is, someone else’s error.

• Try our Scratch simulation
• Try our faster Scratch simulation
• Monty Hall interview about the problem• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

This episode is a special math adventure for younger listeners.  Pete and Noah are called into school to help with all of the mathy details around a class pizza party, and quickly discover that math is all around us all of the time.  Chock full of interesting characters and math challenges for listeners to solve, this story is sure to delight listeners from third grade on up.  

Interactive website that goes with the story: https://bit.ly/mathclubjunior

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

In this episode, Noah comes to Pete for some help with a really big paint job.  After Pete explains just how big (and impossible) the job really is, they have a conversation about surfaces of revolution, and the seeming paradox of Gabriel's Horn.  

• Hyundai’s 35 meter vuvuzela
• Leave us a voice message with your favorite math joke

• Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Season's Greetings, Math Club!  With the holidays on the horizon, a famous song leads Pete and Noah to talk about strategies for adding up long sequences of numbers.  Come join the fun, and learn how a young Carl Gauss may (or may not) have done it.  And if you're up for a challenge, we even "sum it up" with a special holiday puzzle for you to try.

• Brian Hayes's article in American Scientist

• Submit your puzzle solution here - Google Form

• Submit your puzzle solution here - Twitter

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

In our last episode, Pete explained to Noah that imaginary numbers aren't so imaginary after all. This time around, he shows Noah how all the other numbers kinda are. So, if you thought there was something less than real about the square root of negative one, wait 'til you hear about the square root of positive two! Buckle up, Math Club, it's time to let our imagination run wild!!

3Blue1Brown's video on visualizing quaternions

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

In this episode, Noah's having trouble with an old game from his childhood until Pete saves the day by tackling the twisty turns of topology. From donuts to coffee cups, and spheres to tori (or, as Noah calls them: toruses), come explore the interesting world of continuous deformations.  It's time to get into shape!

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

In this episode, Pete and Noah are joined by Dan Finkel, founder of Math for Love and co-creator of the award winning game, Prime Climb.  Listen in as they talk about Dan's work making math fun and accessible by tapping into children's natural desire to play.  And because we know you love to play, too, Dan will also challenge you with a puzzle.

Math for Love

Dan's TED Talk - 5 ways to share math with kids

Submit your puzzle answer

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Today’s match-up answers the age-old question of what happens when an unstoppable brain meets an unbreakable cipher.  In the red corner, weighing in at 2,193 digits….   Noah’s deviously encrypted message!  And in the blue corner.... The Commissioner of Codebreaking….  The Foreman of Frequency Analysis….  Pete’s decoding skills!  Only one will leave the ring victorious.  Who will it be?  Tune in and find out!  The match is about to begin...  DING DING DING!

• Encrypted passage to decode

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Surprise!!!  Pete needs some more time with the codebreaking challenge, so this week we're giving you a previously unaired bonus episode from The Math Club's earliest days (six months ago).  Also, Alexa finally grows too big for her britches.

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Yesterday's episode explored the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange algorithm, including a section in which Pete and Noah came up with a valid generator for a modulus of 23.  The rules about what makes a generator valid can be a bit tricky without visuals, so we made this video bonus to help illustrate what's going on here.

If you use the internet, you rely on mathematical algorithms to securely transmit your private data over public networks. In this episode, Noah describes an encryption scheme he made up in high school, which leads to a discussion about how computers securely exchange encryption keys today. It all ends up with Noah getting Pete to put his money where his math is, by accepting an interesting decoding challenge.

• Encrypted passage to decode

• Diffie and Hellman’s original paper: New Directions in Cryptography

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Pete's out with a broken leg, so Noah and Alexa use math to investigate the mathematics of his skateboarding accident.  Listen in as they talk about angular momentum, the acceleration of falling bodies, and pounds of force generated upon impact.

Free Fall with Air Resistance Calculator

Force of Impact Car Crash Calculator

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Math always seems so objective, with little room for debate.  In other fields there are sometimes huge disagreements among experts.  But what about math?  In this episode, Pete and Noah discuss the age-old argument of where math came from...  was it a discovery or was it an invention?  Join us as we dive into the debate.

Here's a place where you can share your thoughts about our previous seven topics  Were they more invention or more discovery? https://bit.ly/mathclubpodcast-ep8

Roger Penrose Video

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Infinity.  Most kids first learn about this neverending concept when double and triple jinx don’t seem to do enough anymore.  There are infinity pools, the Infnity Engine, and even an Inifinity War.  But how does infinity differ from the counting numbers and the familiar rules that govern them?  In this episode, Pete and Noah use the paradox of Hilbert’s Grand Hotel to explore infinity and discuss some of its interesting quirks.

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Yesterday's episode dove into the numbers around a positive test result that is 99% accurate, when 1 in 100 people have a specific condition.  The result was a bit surprising and counterintuitive, and this video bonus helps to show why it comes out the way it does. 

In this episode, Noah's certain that he has a disease because he tested positive on a test that's 99% accurate.  Does that mean he almost certainly has the disease?  Pete's not so sure, and brings up a statistics concept to help shed some light on the numbers.

• Our online simulator that you can play with • Submit your puzzle answer here

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Lots of us have played with a Rubik's Cube at one time or another, but did you know this simple little toy is chock full of math?  Join Pete and Noah as they talk about billions of combinations, set theory, and the maximum number of moves required to solve the cube.  *Skateboard not required.

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

You've heard about two-factor authentication, but have you heard about two-factor numbers? Of course you have! They're called primes, and in this episode Pete and Noah discuss what they are, how we find them, and some of the more interesting (and as-yet unproven) conjectures about them.  Pete even speculates about how primes might make their Broadway debut!

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

In this episode, Pete and Noah provide opposing viewpoints on how to respond to a classic mathematical paradox.  

• Game Theory and Strategy - Textbook used in Pete's Game Theory course • Are you a one boxer or a two boxer? - Use this link to let us know what you'd decide after listening to the episode.

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

In this episode, Pete and Noah discuss right triangles, pythagorean triples, and why the Scarecrow's brain might not be all it was cracked up to be.  

• Pythagorean Theorem water demo • 3Blue1Brown • Plimpton 322 • Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter

Welcome to The Math Club! In this, our inaugural episode, we start at the origin of all things: Zero. Join us as we explore the special role zero plays in our system of arithmetic and discuss the dazzling way John von Neumann created everything from... nothing!

• Leave us a voice message • Email us • Follow us on Twitter