An interview special, featuring our favourite Abel Prize nominee, @samuel_hansen!

Sam is the brain behind Relatively Prime - which I consider some of the greatest maths radio journalism ever made 1 and respectfully requests your donations towards it. It’s the only thing he’s ever done respectfully, so pay attention. You can donate here - he needs about £10,000 to make a full series, but he’ll be grateful for anything you can spare.

But we start, as we always do, with @icecolbeveridge and an unusually quiet @reflectivemaths exchanging pleasantries.

  • Dave is not entirely happy about going back to school, and Colin is looking forward to some RI masterclasses he’s giving in the autumn
  • Dave has a new pop-shield!
  • Interview time!
    • Sam has some exciting news for us: Relatively Prime is coming back, funding-permitting! Back it at http://relprime.com/kickstarter from September 17th
    • He need $15,000, or about £10,000 GBP, to cover his expenses
    • The new Relatively Prime will have (at least) eight themed episodes, including on mathematical metaphors, the maths of cities, and following a paper’s citation branch
    • The previous RP also had eight themed episodes, including one on music, one on draughts 2
    • Sam cites his main influences as RadioLab, On The Media, 99% Invisible and the rest of Radiotopia, among others.
    • RP is available under a Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike license, so you can remix it if you like (as long as you credit Sam and use the same license)
    • There are loads of rewards for donating
    • Sam has a puzzle! (Hint: it might not be a serious puzzle)
    • Did Sam condescend to Tim Gowers?
    • Sam’s Road-To-Wembley plan for maths
    • We have a little dig at Dave, for the sake of form, and mention @peterrowlett and @stecks’s new podcast
  • Dave volunteers to be on the TMF podcast
  • Dave’s post with a triangular prism of advertising on it (Colin says circumference, corrects it to radius, but means diameter. Good work, Beveridge.)
  • Colin leaps to the defence of formula triangles
  • Colin squares 34 and 67
  • Dave talks about following rules
  • Colin gives the answer for last week (an upside down 87) and is annoyed that nobody explained why people say they’re bad at maths.

  • Dave’s question: how do you get someone to write 5,417,632 without showing them anything or mentioning the numbers?

  • Dave doesn’t understand why we have a “What we don’t understand” section. Any ideas?

Footnotes:

1. I know, small pond

2. checkers, for our American cousins