My Favorite Theorem

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.

Episode 94 - Jeremy Alm

Jeremy Alm likes the Rado graph, a weird object that captures all sorts of interesting properties of finite graphs. Also cheese.

02-06
40:45

Episode 93 - Robin Wilson

Robin Wilson likes the Hopf Index Theorem and we agree. Also, hot fudge.

12-02
22:06

Episode 92 - Kate Stange

Kate Stange is a number theorist who loves quadratic forms (and who doesn't, really). Her favorite theorem is the bijection between them and ideal classes. Also chocolate.

06-10
29:37

Episode 91 - Karen Saxe

Karen Saxe is an analyst who spends her days representing mathematics on Capitol Hill. She really likes the isoperimetric inequality and its many uses. Also tennis.

04-03
34:17

Episode 90 - Corrine Yap

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

01-23
33:46

Episode 89 - Allison Henrich

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

11-12
35:04

Episode 88 - Tom Edgar

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.

10-09
26:15

Episode 87 - Tatiana Toro

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

09-07
23:42

Episode 86 - Sarah Hart

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

07-20
41:14

Episode 85 - Matthew Kahle

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

06-02
30:49

Episode 84 - The Students of TCU

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

05-02
50:21

Episode 83 - Cihan Bahran

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

02-16
26:52

Episode 82 - Juliette Bruce

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

12-30
29:20

Episode 81 - Christopher Danielson

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.

11-26
33:13

Episode 80 - Kimberly Ayers

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

10-21
33:56

Episode 79 - Philip Ording

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.

09-15
34:32

Episode 78 - Daina Taimina

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

08-11
27:40

Episode 77 - Tien Chih

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.

07-13
25:53

Episode 76 - Math Students of CSULA

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

06-09
58:35

Episode 75 - Dave Kung

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.

03-17
30:37

Arif Mansuri

Could you please also add the name of the theorem in the episode title.

04-05 Reply

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