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PODCAST

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical Society

American Mathematical Society

The American Mathematical Society"s Mathematical Moments program promotes appreciation and understanding of the role mathematics plays in science, nature, technology, and human culture. Listen to researchers talk about how they use math, from creating realistic animation to beating cancer.

science & medicine natural sciences

All Episodes

11:57

Explaining Wildfires Through Curvature

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2023/10/17

Dr. Valentina Wheeler of University of Wollongong, Australia, shares how her work influences efforts to understand wildfires and red blood cells.In Australia, where bushfires are a concern year-round, researchers have long tried to model these wildfires, hoping to learn information that can help with firefighting policy. Mathematician Valentina Wheeler and colleagues began studying a particularly dangerous phenomenon: When two wildfires meet, they create a new, V-shaped fire whose pointed

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11:57

Bridges and Wheels, Tricycles and Squares

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2023/10/13

Dr. Stan Wagon of Macalester College discusses the mathematics behind rolling a square smoothly. In 1997, inspired by a square wheel exhibit at The Exploratorium museum in San Francsico, Dr. Stan Wagon enlisted his neighbor Loren Kellen in building a square-wheeled tricycle and accompanying catenary track. For years, you could ride the tricycle at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. The National Museum of Mathematics in New York now also has square-wheeled tricycles that can be

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11:57

Bringing Photographs to Life

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2023/07/13

Dr. Rekha Thomas from the University of Washington discusses three-dimensional image reconstructions from two-dimensional photos. The mathematics of image reconstruction is both simpler and more abstract than it seems. To reconstruct a 3D model based on photographic data, researchers and algorithms must solve a set of polynomial equations. Some solutions to these equations work mathematically, but correspond to an unrealistic scenario — for instance, a camera that took a photo backwards

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11:31

Giving Health Care Policy a Dose of Mathematics

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2023/04/05

Imelda Flores Vazquez from Econometrica, Inc. explains how economists use mathematics to evaluate the efficacy of health care policies. When a hospital or government wants to adjust their health policies — for instance, by encouraging more frequent screenings for certain diseases — how do they know whether their program will work or not? If the service has already been implemented elsewhere, researchers can use that data to estimate its effects. But if the idea is brand-new, or has only been

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10:15

Using Math to Support Cancer Research

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2022/12/29

Stacey Finley from University of Southern California discusses how mathematical models support the research of cancer biology. Cancer research is a crucial job, but a difficult one. Tumors growing inside the human body are affected by all kinds of factors. These conditions are difficult (if not impossible) to recreate in the lab, and using real patients as subjects can be painful and invasive. Mathematical models give cancer researchers the ability to run experiments virtually, testing the

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14:39

Keeping the Lights On

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2022/11/15

Rodney Kizito from U.S. Department of Energy discusses solar energy, mathematics, and microgrids. When you flip a switch to turn on a light, where does that energy come from? In a traditional power grid, electricity is generated at large power plants and then transmitted long distances. But now, individual homes and businesses with solar panels can generate some or all of their own power and even send energy into the rest of the grid. Modifying the grid so that power can flow in both

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12:24

Driving Up Air Pollution

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2022/06/28

Karen Rios Soto explains how mathematics illuminates the link between air pollution from motor vehicle emissions and asthma. Air pollution causes the premature deaths of an estimated seven million people each year, and it makes life worse for all of us. People with asthma can experience chest tightness, coughing or wheezing, and difficulty breathing when triggered by air pollution. One major source is gas- and diesel-powered cars and trucks, which emit "ultrafine" particles less than 0.1

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10:44

Deblurring Images

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2022/05/19

Malena Espanol explains how she and others use linear algebra to correct blurry images. Imagine snapping a quick picture of a flying bird. The image is likely to come out blurry. But thanks to mathematics, you might be able to use software to improve the photo. Scientists often deal with blurry pictures, too. Linear algebra and clever numerical methods allow researchers to fix imperfect photos in medical imaging, astronomy, and more. In a computer, the pixels that make up an image can be

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13:36

Exploring Thermodynamics with Billiards

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2022/02/14

Tim Chumley explains the connections between random billiards and the science of heat and energy transfer. If you've ever played billiards or pool, you've used your intuition and some mental geometry to plan your shots. Mathematicians have gone a step further, using these games as inspiration for new mathematical problems. Starting from the simple theoretical setup of a single ball bouncing around in an enclosed region, the possibilities are endless. For instance, if the region is shaped

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14:29

Pinpointing How Genes Interact

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2021/10/21

Lorin Crawford explains how he uses math to analyze interactions between genes. Your DNA (the biological instruction manual in all of your cells) contains a mind-boggling amount of information represented in roughly 20,000 genes that encode proteins, plus a similar number of genes with other functions. As the cost of analyzing an individual's DNA has plummeted, it has become possible to search the entire human genome for genetic variants that are associated with traits such as height or

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13:53

Securing Data in the Quantum Era

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2021/09/01

Angela Robinson explains the math behind the next generation of cryptographic algorithms. Whenever you log in to a website, send an email, or make an online purchase, you're counting on your data being sent securely, without hackers being able to crack the code. Our standard cryptographic systems hinge on mathematical problems that stump present-day computers, like finding the prime factors of a very large number. But in the coming decades, powerful quantum computers are expected to be able

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17:39

Taking the "Temperature" of Languages

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2021/07/06

Ricardo Bermudez-Otero and Tobias Galla discuss the mathematics describing the evolution of human languages. The sounds and structures of the world's approximately 7,000 languages never stop changing. Just compare the English in Romeo and Juliet or the Spanish in Don Quixote to the modern forms. But historical records give an incomplete view of language evolution. Increasingly, linguists draw upon mathematical models to figure out which features of a language change often and which ones

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11:11

Doing the Math

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2021/05/24

Math may sometimes seem as if it's comprised of countless meaningless unconnected exercises, but in reality, it's much more. It's figuring out how to do something, and, even better, why something works the way it does. The math you're doing now can open doors for you so that you can answer deep questions yourself about a subject or idea that you're interested in. Give those questions a shot and perhaps someday also help others solve their problems. Five mathematicians (Alexander Diaz-Lopez,

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15:26

Making Room for Patients

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2021/04/26

We've seen that the availability of hospital beds is important during a pandemic, and it's important during normal times as well. Whether it's for emergency medical help or for a scheduled procedure (for example, chemotherapy), access to hospital space, staff, and equipment can be a matter of life and death. Mathematics helps medical center staff manage their resources more efficiently so that they are available when needed. An optimization technique called integer programming is used along with

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18:06

Fighting Fires

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2021/03/22

In many places, fire seasons keep getting longer with larger and ever more destructive wildfires. Teams of mathematicians, computer scientists, meteorologists, and firefighters are working to reduce the number of large fires before they happen and to contain those that do occur. Mark Finney talks about the math involved in modeling and fighting wildfires.

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9:31

Describing Dryland Vegetation Patterns

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2021/02/22

Math is often described as the science of patterns, which makes it a natural subject to help in the study of the underlying causes of patterns found in nature, for example, bands of vegetation that often occur on gently sloped terrains in certain near-desert ecosystems worldwide. We are starting to learn more about these bands' common properties by using mathematical models built on data, such as rainfall totals and the curvature of the terrain. Mary Silber talks about these mathematical models of

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24:53

Mixing Math and Cooking

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2021/01/25

Math's connection with cooking extends beyond the mathematical constant that sounds like a dessert. For example, using differential equations to model fluid flow and heat transfer, research teams have found how spaghetti curls as it's cooked, how to rotate a pan to make the perfect crepe (thin pancake), and the temperature setting to get the perfect steak. Mathematics helps understand cooking, and parallels it in that following a recipe can lead to good results, but asking questions like "What if we

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18:12

Cracking Open Black Boxes

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2020/01/27

Algorithms can be very useful, but lately, with so much data being created and shared, and with the increase in their use in critical areas such as hiring, credit, and health care, algorithms are under intense scrutiny about their fairness. People experience the effects of an algorithm's conclusion, but the data and steps that form the basis for that conclusion are frequently hidden from them (as if inside a black box). Cathy O'Neil talks about the unfairness of most predictive algorithms.

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15:03

Solving the Mystery of the Wine Legs

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2019/10/21

What causes wine legs (tears)? Andrea Bertozzi explains and describes how to generate legs.

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4:30

Picturing Powehi

Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical... ·

2019/09/23

Fumie Tazaki talks about creating the first image of a black hole and its shadow, which relied on Fourier transforms. About the work to make the image, she says, "Our collaboration has 200 members and we did it with all of our efforts."

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135 results

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