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My Favorite Theorem

My Favorite Theorem

Exploring the most popular and fascinating stops in the mathematical universe.

Kevin Knudson & Evelyn Lamb · Kevin Knudson

96 episodesEN-US

About

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.

Latest Episodes

View all 96 episodes

Episode 95 - Kyne Santos

Kyne Santos, a drag queen and mathematics educator living in Canada, is a big fan of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. Also hiking.

May 21, 202535 min

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.

Feb 6, 202540 min

Episode 93 - Robin Wilson

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

Dec 2, 202422 min

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.

Jun 10, 202429 min

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.

Apr 3, 202434 min

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.

Jan 23, 202433 min

Episode 89 - Allison Henrich

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

Nov 12, 202335 min

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.

Oct 9, 202326 min

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.

Sep 7, 202323 min

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).

Jul 20, 202341 min

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.

Jun 2, 202330 min

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.

May 2, 202350 min

Episode 83 - Cihan Bahran

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

Feb 16, 202326 min

Episode 82 - Juliette Bruce

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

Dec 30, 202229 min

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.

Nov 26, 202233 min

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.

Oct 21, 202233 min

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.

Sep 15, 202234 min

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.

Aug 11, 202227 min

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.

Jul 13, 202225 min

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.

Jun 9, 202258 min
Kevin Knudson & Evelyn Lamb