Inspired by Math!

James Tanton is one of my personal heroes. James has a PhD in math from Princeton and he worked as a high school math teacher for a bunch of years. He's authored a number of textbooks, puzzle books, and videos. James' love of math is quite infectious. He lives for inspiring teachers and students with the love of math.James and I talked for 46 minutes about his story of becoming a mathematician, his love of abstract algebra, his mission, his role as visiting scholar with the MAA, how he comes up with the most clever and original puzzles, and more.

Dora Musielak is literally a rocket scientist who wrote a historical novel, Sophie's Diary, with a good dose of mathematics in it. Sophie's Diary is the story of the coming of age of a teenager during the French Revolution. Dora and I discuss why she wrote the novel, about her earliest memories of loving math, how parents can inspire their kids to love math, and more.

Seth Caplan is the producer of the Flatland movies. Dano Johnson is writer/director. They've just made their second movie, Flatland 2: Sphereland. I interview the two of them about the movies, the book they're based on, the making of Flatland, and more.

Vickie Kearn is the executive editor at Princeton University Press (PUP). She is also responsible for the math books PUP publishes. More than that, Vickie is an enthusiastic voice for the popularization of math, and she has a special place in her heart for young women in mathematics. Vickie and I had a delightful conversation about how she finds interesting topics and writers, who the audience for PUP books is, PUP's greatest successes, the changing attitude of the public to popular math, Vickie's personal mission, and suggestions for summer reading.

Scott and Jen co-founded Imagine Education, a company that is changing the paradigm for how computers can be used to give students a meaningful experience of math. Scott and Jen created Ko's Journey, an online experience in how math can be fun and relevant. Join me in this interview where we dive into what makes math meaningful, the magic of storytelling, how Scott motivates students in the classroom, and more.

Scott and Jen co-founded Imagine Education, a company that is changing the paradigm for how computers can be used to give students a meaningful experience of math. Scott and Jen created Ko's Journey, an online experience in how math can be fun and relevant. Join me in this interview where we dive into what makes math meaningful, the magic of storytelling, how Scott motivates students in the classroom, and more.

In this podcast, Michael Schrenk and I discuss webbots, spiders, and screen scrapers. These are the tools that allow developers to crawl the web, to mash up contents from multiple web-sites, to monitor sites for activity and to create intelligent agents to make purchases on their behalf. Of particular interest are the stories Mr. Schrenk shares of the intelligent webbots he has built.

Dr. Krantz is a mathematician at Washington University in St. Louis. He has published more than 65 books. His latest book, "A mathematician comes of age," explores the process of become mathematically mature. Dr. Krantz and I explore various aspects of that process, including why mathematics is one of the only intellectual disciplines in which one talks about maturing. We also explore mathematical beauty and maturity and how teachers and parents can create an environment that supports maturation.

I interview John MacCormick about his popular new book, "9 Algorithms that changed the future." Have you ever wondered how computers can detect and correct errors in noisy transmission lines? How computers mine data for patterns? Read the book but first listen to this interview and get inspired about how computer algorithms, driven by deep and frequently subtle mathematics, permeate the world.

Tony Gonzales translated Hiroshi Yuki's Japanese math novel "Math Girl" into English. Tony and I discuss the elements of Math Girl as a story that make the book magic and other subjects related to the book and to Japanese attitudes about math vs. American attitudes. I believe that storytelling is a very powerful way of connecting with people and I see a huge potential in math novels so I was particularly delighted for this interview.

Jason Rosenhouse and Laura Taalman have written a fun book: Taking Sudoku Seriously. I interview the authors about how Sudoku is a great springboard for mathematical exploration, what Sudoku has to do with mathematical thinking, a practical application of Sudoku, ties to various branches of math, and more.

I interview William Cook, math professor and author of "In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman Problem: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation" about his new book, and about how he got sucked into tackling a famous unsolved problem. We discuss why the problem is so intriguing, how young people can explore it, interesting applications, connections to other famous problems, the iPhone app that solves large instances, why the military cares about the problem, and more.

I interview Keith Devlin on a number of subjects: mathematics as a way of thinking, the role of video games, the importance of learning math in a historical context, the value of story-telling in teaching math, and more .... Plus, the most important thing that parents can do to help their kids who are struggling with math.