Relatively Prime: Stories from the Mathematical Domain

Samuel has been feeling a bit nostalgic recently and was thinking about an old show we can almost guarantee you have never heard of, called Science Sparring Society. It was all based around this idea that from a Frank Swain tweet to make a podcast that told the stories of fights from the history of science. It was so much fun making this show, and Samuel was always sad that more people did not get the chance to hear it. Which is exactly why this episode features the two mathematical fights from the 2012 podcast Science Sparring Society. Thankfully the topics were history already when the show first came out. Episode 1: The first fight to be featured in the Science Sparring Society is between the two biggest intellectual heavyweights of the late 17th Century, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. Their battle over the Calculus was so epic they call it a war! Episode 7: For the seventh bout we bring to you the fight of infinity. Pitting two of the greatest mathematical minds of their generation against one another, the fight over infinity changed the face of mathematics itself. In the corner of multiple infinities was Georg Cantor and fight for the finite was Leopold Kronecker. You will have to listen to find out who won, and who hits below the belt. Don't forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and give Samuel the best present ever! Music: Liverpool Guitar Society DJlo CameronMusic folkcello Rob Simpson T.C. Randolph ejlflop Bleerix

We are happy to bring to you a special holiday episode of Relatively Prime during this festive period. Samuel is joined by old pals Katie, Peter, and Christian from the Aperiodical for an often funny, sometimes serious, and always entertaining conversation about the phenomenon of formulas for "The Perfect X" which are often seen in newspapers, especially around the holidays. Some of the examples discussed were the perfect Christmas song, perfect Christmas tree, perfect penalty kick, perfect scone cream ratio, perfect Christmas day, and here are plenty of other ones too that the Aperiodical has gathered. Happy Holidays!!!

It is that time of year where you, and everyone else, is coughing and sniffling and sneezing and generally getting gross germs all over the place. That is why for this episode of Relatively Prime Samuel Hansen speaks with Benjamin Morin about infectious disease modeling and the best mitigation strategies those models indicate to deal with disease while minimizing cost, both for individuals and for societies. Fair warning, those best strategies may be depressing and definitely not what Samuel was hoping for. Don't forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and make sure Samuel can afford to make rent next month. Download the Episode Subscribe: Apple Podcasts or RSS Music Supermilk

Sure DNA is important, some might even claim it is absolutely integral to life itself, but does it contain any interesting math? Samuel is joined by UC-Davis Professor of Mathematics, Microbiology, and Molecular Genetics Mariel Vazquez for a discussion proves conclusively that mathematically DNA is fascinating. They talk about the topology of DNA, how knot theory can help us understand the problems which occur during DNA replication, and how some antibiotics are really pills of weaponized mathematics.

Have you ever wondered what mathematicans' favorite theorems were? How about what food or music pairs perfectly with those theorems? Well whether your answer to those questions was yes or no or what are you talking about there is a new mathematics podcast on the scene you need to check out called My Favorite Theorem. My Favorite Theorem is the brain child of Kevin Knudson and Evelyn Lamb. You may recognize those names as a writer who contributes to The Conversation, Forbes, and is a mathematics professor at the University of Florida and as freelance mathematics journalist who runs the Scientific American blog Roots of Unity. They were kind enough to talk to me early in the morning about where the idea for the show came from, why the pairings are so cool, and how mathematical audio can help humanize mathematicians. Oh, and I make them come up with a pairing for our conversation. Plus, as a super special bonus they were kind enough to let me share episode 3 of My Favorite Theorem with Emille Davie Lawrence as part of the episode. I know you will soon have another podcast added to you subscription list.

Mathematics has been showing up in the news a lot more than usual lately. It has shown up in Slate, The New York Times, and The New Yorker and each time it has been accompanied by one other word, gerrymandering. While Relatively Prime has covered gerrymandering once before in the season 2 episode Mathematistan(a story we just rereleased as an encore presentation in the feed so y'all can get a refresher on the mathematics of gerrymandering) so many important new things have been happening recently it seemed very important to talk about it again. The first interview in this episode is with Eric McGhee, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, who developed a new test for gerrymandering called the Efficiency Gap which takes into account wasted votes. Eric's work on the Efficiency Gap with his research partner Nicholas Stephanopoulos was integral to the argument in Gail v. Whitford the Wisconsin gerrymandering case going before the Supreme Court this October. Samuel is then joined by Moon Duchin, a mathematics professor at Tufts University. Moon is the head of the new Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group. They are all about intersection of mathematics, technology, and redistricting. One of their big focuses is a series of conferences, the first one in Boston just recently took place, where they have a couple of days of public lectures and panels and then private workshops where they train PhDs to be expert redistricting witnesses and consultants, provide mathematical educators with tools to integrate gerrymandering into their curriculums, and hold a hackathon to develop tools for analyzing redistricting plans. Future conferences are coming up in WIsconsin, North Carolina, and Texas. Don't forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and make sure Samuel can afford to make rent next month.

Gerrymandering - the dividing of a state, county, etc., into election districts so as to give one political party a majority in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible. Few aspects of politics are as clearly open to mathematical analysis as gerrymandering. Just looking at district maps seems to scream for geometric analysis, and there really are a lot of different tests out there. Samuel spoke to David Austin about some potential gerrymandered districts and ways to test for them, then things got a bit bizarre. Samuel also sat down with Jonathan Hodge to talk about a technique Hodge helped develop to test for gerrymandering called the Convexity Coefficient. Not all of the ways to test for possible gerrymandering rely on geometry. Duke University Professor Jonathan Mattingly and his former student Christy Vaughn, she is currently a graduate student at Princeton, decided to use probability theory to check to see if the districts used in North Carolina’s 2012 elections had been drawn fairly. The results were eye opening. Don't forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and make sure Samuel can afford to make rent next month.

On this episode of Relatively Prime is the other panel Samuel hosted at the 2017 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta. This panel was called Outside the Equation and focused on mathematical communication outside of the typical, i.e. writing and lecture. The panel consisted of three Relatively Prime guests you already know and love: Tim Chartier, the mathematical mime, Anna Haensch, the co-host of The Other Half podcast, and Robert Schneider, singer, songwriter, and guitarist behind Apples in Stereo. If you want to know how mathematical mime goes over at a Renaissance fair or how mathematicians react to an NPR piece on Poincare conjecture or hear a logarithmic scale as played on a marimba stop reading this and press play now.

Mathematics is not always the easiest thing to talk or write about, especially when the audience is not other mathematicians. This doesn't mean talking about math is impossible though, just that it takes some experience and some maybe some tricks. Of course that leaves a very clear question:  What are these tricks and how can I get this experience? In order to answer just this question Samuel gathered together mathematical communicators Dana Mackenzie, Beth Malmskog, and Colin Adams back in January 2017 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings for the panel "What We Talk About When We Talk About Mathematics", and in this episode of Relatively Prime you will hear from the panel. Don't forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and make sure Samuel can afford to make rent next month. Plus, you can get access to the RelPrime bonus feed and hear the panel in its entirety.

There are stories all the time about race and policing in the United States. They do not typically focus on search rates of traffic stops, but that is a mistake we are not going to make. On this episode of Relatively Prime Samuel talks to Lily Khadjavi of Loyola Marymount University about the relationship between race and searches during traffic stops in Los Angeles. It is not pretty, but it is fascinating and very important. Don’t forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and make sure Samuel can afford to make rent next month. Plus, you can get access to the RelPrime bonus feed and hear Samuel’s full conversation with Lily, including the bit where Samuel talks about the time as a teenager he consented to a search. Download the Episode Subscribe: Apple Podcasts or RSS Music Supermilk (2) SteveCombs

Cancer is a truly terrible disease. We all know it too, in fact it is very likely not a person reading this right now who has not had their own lives or the lives of their nearest and dearest affected by it. This includes your host Samuel. This is one reason Samuel was so interested in hearing to the two brilliant mathematicians you will be hearing from today talk about the work they have been doing using mathematics to better understand how to tackle this horrible disease. First you will will hear Jennifer Chayes, Managing Director of Microsoft Research New England, talk about her work using Steiner Trees to help understand Gene Regulatory Networks as related to Glioblastoma and Breast Cancer. Then the conversation shifts focus to the emerging field of immunotherapy cancer vaccines. To better understand how mathematics may help drive this treatment forward we are joined by Ami Radunskaya of Claremont College in Pomona. Ami discusses how modeling can help create better treatment protocols for these vaccines, and leaves us with a very important action item. Don’t forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and make sure Samuel can afford to make rent next month. Plus, you can get access to the RelPrime bonus feed and hear the full interviews Samuel conducted with both Jennifer Chayes and Ami Radunskaya. Download the Episode Subscribe: iTunes or RSS Music Lowecase n  

  Sorry for the late episode this month, but your intrepid host and producer Samuel Hansen had to go and get himself concussed at his day job. This means he was not able to put together the episode he was planning on releasing, not to worry though he has some tricks up his sleeve. As you may know March 2017 is the month of #TryPod, where podcasts from all over are banding together to convince their listeners to help raise awareness of podcasts by suggesting podcasts to friends and family they may like. This meant that while Samuel was unable to put together a show himself this month he figured why not do a #TryPod for all his listeners and feature an episode of one of his favorite mathematical podcasts The Other Half(To be fully above board Samuel is the Executive Producer and Editor of The Other Half, but all of the genius of the show is fully down to the knowledge and skills and the two amazing hosts Anna Haensch and Annie Rorem). The Other Half Episode 3: Math and Patent Law After a conference Anna attended this summer, during which she and her colleagues considered whether they could legally protect the work they produced, we began to wonder: To what extent can math be considered—and protected as—intellectual property? Already comfortable with mathematical logic and reasoning, we turned to Sarah Wasserman Rajec from William & Mary Law School to help us approach this topic using logic and reason from the legal standpoint.  As we work out an answer in Math and Patent Law, we yuck it up about upstream innovation, a very important encryption algorithm, prime factorization, and whether math is created, invented or…just a matter of eyesight. Download the Episode Subscribe: iTunes or RSS Music Lowercase N  

  We live in a culture obsessed with the Origin Story, and not without reason. There is very rarely a story more fascinating than the one which tells us why it is people do what they do. So, for the first ever live episode of Relatively Prime we present to you the mathematical origin stories of Lily Khadjavi and Robert Schneider. The episode was recorded live at the 2017 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta, Georgia. Many thanks to the MAA and the AMS for putting on the meetings and giving us the opportunity to have a live show, as well as so much thanks to the wonderful crew at the Hilton for all their help pulling everything together. Don’t forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and make sure Samuel can afford to make rent next month. Plus, you can get access to the RelPrime bonus feed and hear about the most amazing live composition Robert Schneider ever heard. Download the Episode Subscribe: iTunes or RSS Music ScienceCTN Lowercase N Broke for Free  

We are right in the middle of that time every four years when the United States of America focuses very intently on the government, the whole government and not just the elected officials. Right now there are confirmation hearings happening, the executive branch is going through the final steps of transition, and a bunch of fresh congress people are settling into their new roles. This period is always a great reminder of all of the parts of the government which tend to be forgotten, like say the Department of the Interior. That is right, there really is a Department of the Interior. Since the USA’s focus is all on the government right now, so is Relatively Prime’s. In particular we will be focusing on the role mathematics and mathematicians should play in our government. No matter what your personal political persuasion, if you are listening to this podcast it is a safe bet you wish mathematics had a place a little closer to the center of the political action. You are not alone, there are people working to make this happen. One such group are the AMS Congressional Fellows and this episode features an interview host Samuel Hansen conducted with the 2009-2010 AMS Congressional Fellow Katherine Crowley, actually she is not only a congressional fellow, she was also a AAAS policy fellow at the Department of Energy from 2011-2013. They discuss what Katherine’s fellowships entailed, how mathematics can help with policy, and how policy can help with mathematics. The interview was recorded in at the Seattle Joint Mathematics Meetings in January of 2016 where Katherine presented a talk about her time on the hill and in the executive branch. For anyone worried about being burnt out on political discussion after this last election season do not worry, this interview happened well before the election was in full swing and there is no talk about it at all.  Don’t forget to support Relatively Prime on Patreon and make sure Samuel can afford to make rent next month. Plus, you can get access to the RelPrime bonus feed and hear Katrine Crowley’s first mathematical memory. Download the Episode Subscribe: iTunes or RSS Music Jahzarr  

Lottery Daze Welcome to the new season of Relatively Prime! There will be a few changes for the new season, primarily each episode will feature only a single story, but to make up for that episodes will be coming out monthly, starting with this one which features the story of how Sharif Ibrahim developed the lottery which was used to award licenses for the retail sale of cannabis in Washington State after the referendum legalizing it was passed in November, 2012. You can support Relatively Prime by becoming a patron of the show on Patreon. Any support you can give the show is greatly appreciated, and goes a long way to making sure it is sustainable. If you are going to be attending the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta(or just happen to live in the great city) next month you can not miss the LIVE recording of an episode of Relatively Prime. There are great guests lined up and you can be in the room while the magic is happening. All you have to do is show up at Regency Ballroom VII at the Hyatt on Friday January 6 at 8:00 PM. Download the Episode Subscribe: iTunes or RSS Music Jahzarr Arbiter 617 The Phish audio was via @PhrankieC1 and the tape from the Draft Lottery came from CBS.