The secrets of Mathematics (podcast)
Subject: Mathematics
Type: Podcast
Hosts: Various
How long is it?
There are 94 episodes. Some episodes are less than 20 minutes long, whereas others are 2 hours and 15 minutes in length.
Is it easy to understand?
Not all the mathematical terms are defined, but it is easier to follow if you watch the lectures rather than listening to them.
Who is it for?
It is for people interested in mathematics and its applications.
How recent is it?
The first episode was released in 2014 and the last episode was released in 2021.
Maths in Music: The Secret Mathematicians – Marcus du Sautoy
The Music of the Primes: a talk about the Riemann Hypothesis and primes – Marcus du Sautoy
Symmetry: a talk based on his second book, Finding Moonshine – Marcus du Sautoy
The Secret Mathematicians: the connections between maths and the arts – Marcus du Sautoy
Computation and the Future of Mathematics – Stephen Wolfram
Prime Numbers – Richard Earl
Partial Differential Equations: Origins, Developments and Roles in the Changing World – Gui-Qiang George Chen
Bryce McLeod, a Life in Mathematics In conversation with John Ball
Why there are no three-headed monsters, resolving some problems with brain tumours, divorce prediction and how to save marriages – James D Murray
Extra Time: Professor Sir Roger Penrose in conversation with Andrew Hodges
Big Data’s Big Deal – Viktor Mayer-Schonberger
The History of Mathematics in 300 Stamps – Robin Wilson
What Maths Really Does: From modelling the brain to modelling the climate – Alain Goriely
Forbidden Crystal Symmetry: Mathematics and architecture – Roger Penrose
James D Murray, reflections of a life in academia, in conversation with Phillip Maini
Sir Michael Atiyah, a Life in Mathematics
The irrational, the chaotic and the incomplete: the mathematical limits of knowledge – Marcus du Sautoy
Why climate change action is difficult and how we can make a difference – David MacKay
Birth of an Idea: A Mathematical Adventure – Cedric Villani
The Gomboc, the Turtle and the Evolution of Shape – Gabor Domokos
M. C. Escher – Artist, Mathematician, Man
Putting the Higgs Boson in its Place
Symmetry, Spaces and Undecidability – Martin Bridson
The Travelling Santa Problem and Other Seasonal Challenges – Marcus du Sautoy
What We Cannot Know – Marcus du Sautoy
The Prime Number Theorem
Modelling genes: the backwards and forwards of mathematical population ethics – Alison Etheridge
Roger Heath-Brown a Life in Mathematics
Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe – Roger Penrose
As he retires from the Savilian Chair of Geometry, Oxford Mathematician Nigel Hitchin reflects
Autism and Minds Wired for Science
How can we understand our complex economy?
The Mathematics of Visual Illusions – Ian Stewart
Statistics: Why the Truth Matters – Tim Harford
The Butterfly Effect – What Does it Really Signify? – Tim Palmer
The Sound of Symmetry – Marcus du Sautoy
The Law of the Few – Sanjeev Goyal
Closing the Gap: the quest to understand prime numbers – Vicky Neale
Maths v Disease – Julia Gog
The Seduction of Curves: The Lines of Beauty That Connect Mathematics, Art and The Nude – Allan McRobie
Oxford Mathematics London Public Lecture – Andrew Wiles
Can Yule Solve My Problems? – Alex Bellos
Euler’s pioneering equation: “the most beautiful theorem in mathematics” – Robin Wilson
Can Mathematics Understand the Brain? – Alain Goriely
Numbers are Serious but they are also Fun – Michael Atiyah
Richard James – Atomistically inspired origami
John Ball in conversation with Alain Goriely
Oxford Mathematics and the Clay Mathematics Institute Public Lectures: Roger Penrose – Eschermatics
Roger Penrose in conversation with Hannah Fry
Can we build AI with Emotional Intelligence? The 2018 Annual Charles Simonyi Lecture
Marcus du Sautoy – The Num8er My5teries
An introduction to Complex Numbers – Vicky Neale
Hooke Lecture – Michael Berry – Chasing the dragon: tidal bores in the UK and elsewhere
James Maynard – Prime Time: How simple questions about prime numbers affect us all
James Sparks – Dynamics
Oxford Mathematics First Year Student Tutorial on Dynamics
Marc Lackenby – Knotty Problems
Analysis III – Integration
Graham Farmelo – The Universe Speaks in Numbers
Marcus du Sautoy – The Creativity Code: how AI is learning to write, paint and think
John Bush – Walking on water: from biolocomotion to quantum foundations
Introduction to Mathematics
Pure Mathematics at Oxford
Applied Mathematics at Oxford
David Sumpter – Soccermatics: could a Premier League team one day be managed by a mathematician?
Introductory Calculus
Differential Equations
Vicky Neale – in Maths
Timothy Gowers – Productive generalisation: one reason we will never run out of interesting mathematical questions
Quantum theory
Waves and resonance: from musical instruments to vacuum cleaners, via metamaterials and invisibility cloaks
Chris Budd – Why does Rudolf have a shiny nose?
Carlo Rovelli – Spin networks: the quantum structure of spacetime from Penrose’s intuition to Loop Quantum Gravity
Ian Griffiths – Cheerios, iPhones and Dysons: going backwards in time with fluid mechanics
Linear Algebra
Mathematical Models of Financial Derivatives
Alan Champneys – Why pedestrian bridges wobble: Synchronisation and the wisdom of the crowd
How do mathematicians model infectious disease outbreaks?
Smartphones v COVID 19
Graph Theory: Shortest Paths
Number Theory: Primitive Roots
Squirrels, Turing and Excitability – Mathematical Modelling in Biology, Ecology and Medicine
Can maths tell us how to win at Fantasy Football? – Joshua Bull
How to Make the World Add Up – Tim Harford
How Learning Ten Equations Can Improve Your Life – David Sumpter
Henry Segerman – Artistic Mathematics: truth and beauty
Ideas for a Complex World – Anna Seigal
Spacetime Singularities – Roger Penrose, Dennis Lehmkuhl and Melvyn Bragg
Jon Keating: From one extreme to another: the statistics of extreme events
I is a strange Loop – written and performed by Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould
Mathemalchemy: a mathematical and artistic adventure
My thoughts…
One thing you should know about Wider Reading Geek is that I will never write about something I haven’t read/watched/listened to. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve listened to every single episode of The Secrets of Mathematics because I doubt you would attempt to do so either. Instead, I suggest listening to the episodes whose titles intrigue you most. Here are some of my favourites, as well as my opinions on the topics discussed:
- Maths in Music: The Secret Mathematicians – Marcus du Sautoy
- Statistics: Why the Truth Matters – Tim Harford
- Can we build AI with Emotional Intelligence? The 2018 Annual Charles Simonyi Lecture
The connection between mathematics and art
I think that one of the reasons why mathematics can be found in so many pieces of music, artwork, literature and architecture is that these things require creativity. Often, it can be difficult to be creative when there seem to be an infinite number of possibilities for the composer’s next piece, or the architect’s next design. Mathematics offers constraints to artistic professionals, joining with their creativity to create something original. I also think that it’s no wonder that mathematics is related to aesthetics and art. The concepts of symmetry, asymmetry, shape and dimension are mathematical, yet they are the tools of artists.
Can we build AI with emotional intelligence?
Devices have already been built which can predict ‘meltdowns’ in autistic children and seizures in those with epilepsy and they can do so better than humans ever could. However, this AI does not have emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence cannot be built, at least not in the near future, but I think that there are bigger questions to ask. Rather than striving for the most human-like designs, we should focus on the things that technology does better than us, such as monitoring body temperature, brain activity and heart rate. This way, we can learn from AI in order to become more emotionally intelligent ourselves.
Is the truth enough?
Statistics help us say what’s true and what isn’t, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Not only must we acknowledge that statistics are often used deceitfully, as I learnt from the book A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics, but also that facts aren’t always sufficient in persuading people with preconceived ideas. This is why we should be encouraging curiosity rather than dispute. In a world full of misinformation and contradiction, this might be the only way to get through to people. If we can be curious about the possibility of the truth being different to our opinions, we can better identify flaws in the ‘truths’ we are presented with, so that the value of good statistics is preserved.