Is There a Symmetry in the Human Body?

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Mathan: Growing up at being labelled as good at math sort of made me feel like part of my identity was being good at math. And so getting to grad school, which was iwent to the ph d. Program at harvard, you meet some of the most talented people in the world. It's not a perfect symmetry, but that symmetry gives you a guide for how to think bout whatever it is you're thinking about. If we pay attention to what makes us human, it helps us to think more broadly about what means to do mathematics and to do it, to do it.

Every day, we humans do math. Whether we are obsessed with a logic puzzle on our smartphones or even just calculating a morning alarm that gives you 8 more minutes in bed, our daily lives are full of numbers, quantities, shapes and patterns. And for Francis Su—a writer and Professor of Mathematics and the Former President of the Mathematical Association of America—math is actually one of the things that makes us human. In today’s episode he talks about how mathematics can serve as a tool for social justice, how math can enhance our sense of aesthetics and beauty, why math is one of the last refuges of truth in a time where misinformation is rampant, and how we can all learn to cultivate, and even come to love, the little daily mathematics of our lives.