My Favorite Theorem

At the 2019 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore, Kevin and Evelyn asked lots of folks to tell us about their favorite results, and do it in a hurry. The pairings, thought of on the fly, do not disappoint.

In this episode James Propp challenges the obvious notion that things that don't change must be constant. Indeed, it would be an odd universe in which this were not true, but it very much depends upon, and is in fact equivalent to, the completeness of the real numbers. Also potato chips.

Number theorist Matilde Lalin introduces us to the Congruent Number Problem: which integers can occur as the area of a right triangle with rational sides? This turns out to have deep connections to elliptic curves and the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjectures and other cool stuff.

Geometer Moon Duchin shares her favorite result, a wild generalization of the classical isoperimetric inequality to the landscape of infinite groups. Also politics and gerrymandering, of course.

Our first computer scientist guest tells us about Fano's Inequality and tells us the best snack to enjoy with it.

Mathematician Ursula Whitcher really likes mirror symmetry. And ramen. Find out what this is and why it pairs with noodle soup.

Middle school math teacher Fawn Nguyen gets excited about right triangles and tells us all kinds of trivia about one of the most famous theorems in all of mathematics.

Prof. Rob Ghrist likes dynamics and his favorite theorem unifies the continuous and the discrete by relating the two essential operations in each. Fueled by Monster energy drink.

Cynthia Flores likes uncertainty so much that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Inequality is her favorite theorem. Plus Rick and Morty.

Our guests' wedding went viral and we just had to talk to them. Also, the Intermediate Value Theorem.

Nira Chamberlain likes applied mathematical models. In this episode he tells us about the Lorenz attractor and how that pairs nicely with Caribbean food.

In middle school, mathematician Skip Garibaldi wondered how many real numbers you can actually name. The answer is not as many as you'd like.

Mathematician and writer Michele Audin lets us know why she loves Stokes's Theorem enough to have written a novel about it.

Mathematician Anil Venkatesh likes the Shapley Value, and it turns out to have applications unrelated to politics.

Mathematician-journalist Yen Duong joins us to talk about Ramsey theory and the first "real" theorem she learned--the Ramsey number R(3,3) is 6.