My Favorite Theorem artwork

My Favorite Theorem

91 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 94 ratings

Join us as we spend each episode talking with a mathematical professional about their favorite result. And since the best things in life come in pairs, find out what our guest thinks pairs best with their theorem.

Mathematics Science
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Episodes

Episode 90 - Corrine Yap

January 23, 2024 22:47 - 33 minutes - 46.4 MB

Corrine Yap loves math, graph theory in particular, and also loves to perform her one-person play about Sonya Kovalevskaya. Also, tofu.

Episode 89 - Allison Henrich

November 12, 2023 19:20 - 35 minutes - 48.2 MB

Allison Henrich studies knots and her favorite theorem is about how one might unknot a knot. Also, music.

Episode 88 - Tom Edgar

October 09, 2023 15:49 - 26 minutes - 36.1 MB

We all know the (probably apocryphal) story of Gauss adding up the first 100 positive integers as a child. Well, Tom Edgar really likes this result and will be happy to tell you about dozens of different ways to prove it. Also, Groundhog Day.

Episode 87 - Tatiana Toro

September 07, 2023 18:53 - 23 minutes - 15.9 MB

Tatiana Toro is a geometer and therefore loves the ur-theorem of geometry, "due" to Pythagoras. She also likes to walk.

Episode 86 - Sarah Hart

July 20, 2023 19:01 - 41 minutes - 56.6 MB

Gresham Professor of Geometry Sarah Hart likes cycloids and we talk at length about all their fascinating properties. Also, Moby Dick (or The Whale).

Episode 85 - Matthew Kahle

June 02, 2023 13:18 - 30 minutes - 42.3 MB

Euler's polyhedral formula continues to amaze Matthew Kahle as he finds it showing up in different places in mathematics. Also, Bach.

Episode 84 - The Students of TCU

May 02, 2023 14:41 - 50 minutes - 69.2 MB

Kevin visited Texas Christian University in March and recorded this episode with some math students. Excellent theorems and pairings.

Episode 83 - Cihan Bahran

February 16, 2023 15:44 - 26 minutes - 36.9 MB

Cihan Bahran has a popular twitter feed in which he shares surprising theorems. His favorite? Matrix mortality is undecidable.

Episode 82 - Juliette Bruce

December 30, 2022 16:52 - 29 minutes - 40.3 MB

Juliette Bruce is an algebraic geometer who loves to think about embedding curves in projective space. Also mountaineering.

Episode 81 - Christopher Danielson

November 26, 2022 17:16 - 33 minutes - 45.6 MB

Technically this is a theorem, but it seems so obvious that it's unclear that it needs a proof. In this episode Christopher Danielson points out that polygons have same number of sides as vertices. Many shapes make an appearance.

Episode 80 - Kimberly Ayers

October 21, 2022 14:00 - 33 minutes - 46.6 MB

Kimberly Ayers likes dynamics and so obvs her fave theorem is Sharkovskii's result that "period 3 implies chaos." Also taffy.

Episode 79 - Philip Ording

September 15, 2022 21:55 - 34 minutes - 47.4 MB

Philip Ording wrote a cool book (you should check it out) and he likes the Erlangen Program. Not really a theorem, but we're not purists around here.

Episode 78 - Daina Taimina

August 11, 2022 16:21 - 27 minutes - 38 MB

Daina Taimina is famous for her adventures in mathematical crocheting, but her favorite theorem comes from Desargues. She also likes to travel.

Episode 77 - Tien Chih

July 13, 2022 16:01 - 25 minutes - 35.5 MB

Tien Chih loves combinatorics, which means he really loves proving things by induction. In this episode we have a good time learning about this incredibly useful technique in mathematics.

Episode 76 - Math Students of CSULA

June 09, 2022 17:53 - 58 minutes - 80.4 MB

We are joined by a group of math students at Cal State University in Los Angeles for a diverse collection of theorems and pairings.

Episode 75 - Dave Kung

March 17, 2022 14:18 - 30 minutes - 42 MB

We can't believe it took 75 episodes to get to the Banach-Tarski paradox, but finally Dave Kung chose it as his favorite theorem. Also, Enigma Variations.

Episode 74 - Priyam Patel

February 11, 2022 03:27 - 42 minutes - 58.6 MB

An old favorite theorem makes its third appearance on the pod, but we always like to learn new points of view. Priyam Patel likes the Brouwer Fixed Point theorem, and this time we learn how it helps classify isometries of hyperbolic space. Also, rock climbing.

Episode 73 - Courtney Gibbons

January 13, 2022 14:42 - 41 minutes - 57.6 MB

Courtney Gibbons likes isomorphism theorems. All three of them, in fact, and she wants to remind you they are due to Emmy Noether, despite most textbooks ignoring that fact. Also, bunnies.

Episode 72 - Kameryn Williams

December 10, 2021 02:07 - 22 minutes - 31 MB

Kameryn Williams is a logician and their favorite theorem is the less well-known Condensation Lemma of Gödel. Also brie.

Episode 71 - Emily Howard

November 11, 2021 20:11 - 39 minutes - 54.9 MB

Composer Emily Howard uses mathematical objects and ideas as inspiration for her orchestral and chamber pieces. In this episode we talk to her about "Torus" which was inspired by work with dynamicists.

Episode 70 - Joel David Hamkins

September 22, 2021 13:49 - 39 minutes - 54.6 MB

Mathematician and philosopher Joel David Hamkins likes games (whatever those are) and his favorite theorem is that winning strategies exist. This requires defining "games", "strategies", and all kinds of other stuff. Also chess.

Episode 69 - Ranthony Edmonds

August 14, 2021 18:30 - 36 minutes - 49.7 MB

Mathematician Ranthony Edmonds likes factorization in general, so it's no surprise her favorite theorem is the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. And some history. And mead.

Episode 68 - Rekha Thomas

July 08, 2021 18:57 - 27 minutes - 37.1 MB

Mathematician Rekha Thomas likes things to have applications, and nothing fits that bill better than linear algebra. In this episode we learn that the singular value decomposition gives us a lot more information than you might have realized. Also, migratory birds.

Episode 67 - Liz Munch

June 10, 2021 14:49 - 33 minutes - 45.5 MB

Mathematician Liz Munch really likes the duality inherent in the Max Flow-Min Cut Theorem. And harps.

Episode 66 - Érika Roldán

May 15, 2021 15:06 - 37 minutes - 51 MB

Mathematician Érika Roldán likes probability and topology and all kinds of fun stuff. Her favorite theorem involves card shuffling, but it eventually leads to Tetris. Also 3D art.

Episode 65 - Howard Masur

April 08, 2021 02:00 - 28 minutes - 39.6 MB

Howard Masur likes the Riemann Mapping Theorem, a result relating topology (simply connected subsets of the plane) and geometry (conformal mappings).

Episode 64 - Pamela Harris and Aris Winger

March 11, 2021 16:03 - 48 minutes - 66.7 MB

Pamela Harris and Aris Winger have a podcast you should check out, but they also have favorite theorems as diverse as Zeckendorf's theorem about unique representations of integers as sums of Fibonacci numbers and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. Also ceviche and pizza.

Episode 63 - Lily Khadjavi

February 11, 2021 14:42 - 50 minutes - 69.4 MB

Mathematician Lily Khadjavi does more interviewing than we do in this episode, as she proposes a taxonomy of theorems.

Episode 62 - Tai-Danae Bradley

January 15, 2021 15:45 - 31 minutes - 43.7 MB

Mathematician Tai-Danae Bradley is very excited about the singular value decomposition. And category theory. And Dum Dums.

Episode 61 - Yoon Ha Lee

December 10, 2020 15:53 - 22 minutes - 30.8 MB

Science fiction author Yoon Ha Lee has degrees in mathematics and it shows. We revisit an old favorite, Cantor's diagonalization argument. Also waffles.

Episode 60 - Michael Barany

November 12, 2020 14:51 - 40 minutes - 55.8 MB

Historian of mathematics Michael Barany has a favorite definition, really, and it's about distributions. Also, we talk about the history of the Fields Medal and a well-thought-out pairing.

Episode 59 - Daniel Litt

October 08, 2020 15:51 - 26 minutes - 36.5 MB

Daniel Litt really likes Dirichlet's theorem on primes in arithmetic progressions and it's easy to see why. But we'll let him explain. Also Holmes and Watson make an appearance.

Episode 58 - Susan D'Agostino

September 10, 2020 19:12 - 25 minutes - 34.6 MB

The Jordan Curve Theorem is one of the most well-known results in mathematics and everyone thinks it's obvious. But as Susan D'Agostino points out, there are weird curves where it's not so clear. Also, poetry.

Episode 57 - Annalisa Crannell

August 13, 2020 01:42 - 33 minutes - 46 MB

This special episode is a mashup with the Talk Math With Your Friends online seminar series and features mathematician Annalisa Crannell telling us all about Desargues' Theorem, or, as she would call it, the Fundamental Theorem of Perspective Geometry. Also, chopsticks.

Episode 56 - Belin Tsinnajinnie

July 09, 2020 02:31 - 35 minutes - 48.3 MB

Voting theory is on everyone's mind these days. Belin Tsinnajinnie joins us to talk about Arrow's Impossibility Theorem which asserts that the only voting system that conforms to some reasonable rules is a dictatorship by one person. Also tacos.

Episode 55 - Rebecca Garcia

June 11, 2020 02:07 - 24 minutes - 33.7 MB

One of those first weird facts you learn in real analysis is that the rational numbers are dense in the reals. And then you learn later that they're measure zero. Our guest, Rebecca Garcia, says this still kind of blows her mind.

Episode 54 - Steve Strogatz

May 14, 2020 14:12 - 32 minutes - 45.2 MB

Steve Strogatz is famous for his work in dynamical systems, but his favorite theorem is due to Cauchy. A classic of complex analysis, it asserts that the integral of an analytic function around a closed contour is zero; one of the cleanest results in mathematics. Also, cubism.

Episode 53 - Ruthi Hortsch

April 09, 2020 14:15 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MB

Ruthi Hortsch has a very cool job working with middle school math students, but she's also a number theorist who really likes Faltings's Theorem. Also bagels.

Episode 52 - Ben Orlin

March 12, 2020 16:30 - 27 minutes - 37.5 MB

Ben Orlin is famous for his bad drawings. In this episode he tells us about Weierstrass's ultimate bad drawing--a continuous function that is nowhere differentiable.

Episode 51 - Carina Curto

February 13, 2020 01:59 - 29 minutes - 40.2 MB

Mathematician Carina Curto really likes the Perron-Frobenius Theorem. Listen to find out why this simple-sounding result is so important and useful.

Episode 50 - aBa

January 09, 2020 03:23 - 35 minutes - 48.6 MB

aBa took a circuitous path to becoming a math professor. His favorite theorem is a number theory fact he figured out on the bus one day and it changed the course of his life.

Episode 49 - Edmund Harriss

December 12, 2019 03:00 - 31 minutes - 28.5 MB

Mathematician and artist Edmund Harriss thinks about geometry. A lot. And that means considering the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem and how it manifests in the real world.

Episode 48 - Sophie Carr

November 14, 2019 03:17 - 23 minutes - 32.1 MB

Bayes's Theorem: love it or hate it you can't deny that it's a useful tool in probability. Join this year's most interesting mathematician Sophie Carr to find out why she loves this theorem so much.

Episode 47 - Judy Walker

October 10, 2019 02:00 - 31 minutes - 43.4 MB

Judy Walker loves coding theory and tells us all about her favorite ones in this episode. Elliptic curves FTW!

Episode 46 - Adriana Salerno

September 12, 2019 03:07 - 30 minutes - 42.5 MB

Adriana Salerno loves one of the most famous arguments in mathematics--Cantor's Diagonalization Argument. We couldn't agree more (although we certainly agree plenty in the episode).

Episode 45 - Your Flash Favorite Theorems

August 08, 2019 02:20 - 35 minutes - 65.3 MB

At the 2019 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore, Kevin and Evelyn asked lots of folks to tell us about their favorite results, and do it in a hurry. The pairings, thought of on the fly, do not disappoint.

Episode 44 - James Propp

July 11, 2019 02:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MB

In this episode James Propp challenges the obvious notion that things that don't change must be constant. Indeed, it would be an odd universe in which this were not true, but it very much depends upon, and is in fact equivalent to, the completeness of the real numbers. Also potato chips.

Episode 43 - Matilde Lalin

June 13, 2019 02:00 - 28 minutes - 39.2 MB

Number theorist Matilde Lalin introduces us to the Congruent Number Problem: which integers can occur as the area of a right triangle with rational sides? This turns out to have deep connections to elliptic curves and the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjectures and other cool stuff.

Episode 42 - Moon Duchin

May 09, 2019 02:00 - 24 minutes - 34 MB

Geometer Moon Duchin shares her favorite result, a wild generalization of the classical isoperimetric inequality to the landscape of infinite groups. Also politics and gerrymandering, of course.

Episode 41 - Suresh Venkatasubramanian

April 25, 2019 02:00 - 30 minutes - 41.4 MB

Our first computer scientist guest tells us about Fano's Inequality and tells us the best snack to enjoy with it.

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