The Impossibility of Total Disorder

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

There was one little piece of advanced math that appeared in the book that I thought was very amusing and I would like to understand better myself. Ramsey theory is just the idea that with a big enough set, a big enough number of connections, among the elements, you're going to necessarily have some bit of order. With bigger sets, you need a much bigger set to have more order, but it's impossible to not have any bit of Order.

People have a complicated relationship to mathematics. We all use it in our everyday lives, from calculating a tip at a restaurant to estimating the probability of some future event. But many people find the subject intimidating, if not off-putting. John Allen Paulos has long been working to make mathematics more approachable and encourage people to become more numerate. We talk about how people think about math, what kinds of math they should know, and the role of stories and narrative to make math come alive.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

John Allen Paulos received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is currently a professor of mathematics at Temple University. He s a bestselling author, and frequent contributor to publications such as ABCNews.com, the Guardian, and Scientific American. Among his awards are the Science Communication award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Mathematics Communication Award from the Joint Policy Board of Mathematics. His new book is Who’s Counting? Uniting Numbers and Narratives with Stories from Pop Culture, Puzzles, Politics, and More.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.