A Numbers Game: Mathspiracies

EPISODE 139 | A Numbers Game: Mathspiracies

Guest: Gary Arndt, writer and host of the Everything Everywhere Daily podcast

We aren't really very good with numbers, so naturally we've come up with a lot of wacky ideas about them. Gary Arndt talks about numbers of all sorts, like why Pi is stupid, why prime numbers are cool, why the Fibonacci sequence isn't all that, when math leads to murder and much more.

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SECTIONS

1. 02:25 - Numeracy rates, gambling is (usually) a sucker's bet, numerology, the Bible Code, p-hacking, Equidistant Letter Sequencing (ELS)
2. 13:09 - The Hidden Hand of Mathematics, the Ultraviolet Catastrophe and the birth of quantum physics, the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio
3. 20:05 - Pi, tau, the Cult of Pythagoras, irrational numbers, transcendental numbers, squaring the circle, Alex Jones and math, the real number of the Beast
4. 28:51 - Why people believe conspiracy theories
5. 30:13 - Angel numbers, the "meanings" of numbers
6. 33:43 - Numbers stations
7. 37:25 - Prime numbers, Prime Target TV series, trapdoor functions in cryptography, Al-Khwarizmi, double entry bookkeeping, the idea of zero, zero and null are different
8. 43:20 - Base-10, base-12, base-60, and our timekeeping and calendar systems

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

More Info

• Everything Everywhere Daily podcast
• The Bible Code book review in Notices of the AMS
• The Significance of The Number Forty-Two (42) by By Rabbi Dr. Hillel ben David (Greg Killian)
• Magic Apologetics: Equidistant Letter Sequencing in the Christian Research Journal
• Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick!
• THE UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENSS OF MATHEMATICS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES by Eugene Wigner
• The Ultraviolet Catastrophe and the Creation of Quantum Mechanics episode of Everything Everywhere Daily
• What is the Fibonacci sequence? on LiveScience
• Fibonacci Sequence on Math Is Fun
• Composing Balanced Images: The Golden Ratio on ProGrade Digital
• Everything You Need to Know About Pi episode of Everything Everywhere Daily
• Why Tau Should Replace Pi episode of Everything Everywhere Daily
• The Cult of Pythagoras episode of Everything Everywhere Daily
• Irrational Numbers episode of Everything Everywhere Daily
• Squaring the Circle episode of Everything Everywhere