Infinite Series

Mathematician Kelsey Houston-Edwards explains exactly what singularities are and how they exist right under our noses.

In this episode probability mathematics and chess collide. What is the average number of steps it would take before a randomly moving knight returned to its starting square?

You’ve always been told that pi is 3.14. This is true, but this number is based on how we measure distance. Find out what happens to pi when we change the way we measure distance.

Mathematician Mark Kac asked the question “Can we hear the shape of a drum?” It was a question that took over 20 years to answer. Sine waves, fundamental frequencies, eigenvalues, this episode has got it all!

You’re about to throw a party with a thousand bottles of wine, but you just discovered that one bottle is poisoned! Can you determine exactly which one it is?

There are different sizes of infinity. It turns out that some are larger than others. Mathematician Kelsey Houston-Edwards breaks down what these different sizes are and where they belong in The Hierarchy of Infinities.

Do two people on the planet have the exact same number of body hairs? How about more than two? There’s a simple yet powerful mathematical principle that can help you find out the answer. Kelsey Houston-Edwards breaks down the Pigeonhole Principle and explains how it can be used to answer some pretty perplexing questions.

Is math real or simply something made up by mathematicians? You can’t physically touch a number yet using numbers we’re able to build skyscrapers and launch rockets into space. Mathematician Kelsey Houston-Edwards explains this perplexing dilemma and discusses the different viewpoints that philosophers and mathematicians have regarding the realism of mathematics.

Higher dimensional spheres, or hyperspheres, are counter-intuitive and almost impossible to visualize. Mathematician Kelsey Houston-Edwards explains higher dimensional spheres and how recent revelations in sphere packing have exposed truths about 8 and 24 dimensions that we don't even understand in 4 dimensions.