Marshall Poe
50 episodes listed below
Mathematics, patiently placed in context.
New Books in Mathematics is a book-centered interview show about the many places mathematics appears: cosmology, cognition, biology, craft culture, probability, and formal thought. The conversations move patiently, letting authors explain technical arguments without sanding off their difficulty.
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New Books in Mathematics is a patient, bookish interview feed for listeners who want mathematics placed back into the world around it. The show begins with books, but it rarely stays confined to publication summaries. A conversation about Antonio Padilla's Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them can stretch from zero and infinity toward cosmic scale, inflation, and the question of whether mathematics finally belongs to the universe or exceeds it. Tom Griffiths's The Laws of Thought leads into another kind of abstraction: whether human thinking can be described by formal mathematical principles. That episode links cognitive science, modern AI, geometry, language, and the long ambition to give thought a mathematical shape. Andrew Jaffe's The Random Universe brings probability and models into cosmology, with attention to Bayesian statistical techniques and the interpretation of data about the universe as a whole. Other episodes widen the archive. Thomas Maran's work on underground mathematics connects craft culture with early modern knowledge production. Al Plazimentier's Math Makers uses biography to show mathematicians as people whose lives can be tangled with historical events as much as with equations. David Bressoud's Calculus Reordered frames mathematics as a search for deep structures and rules that reveal themselves through inquiry. The show has an academic spine, but it is not sealed off from lay curiosity. Questions tend to summarize a book's argument and then ask the author to clarify, extend, or ground it. Answers can run long. That is part of the appeal. The format trusts listeners to follow sustained explanation, while still giving them enough context to enter unfamiliar fields. It is especially strong when a technical idea is treated as a historical artifact, a philosophical pressure point, and a practical tool all at once. The result is a mathematics show less interested in speed than in orientation: what the idea is, where it came from, and why a serious reader might want to sit with it.
Made for: For serious readers, lifelong learners, and mathematically curious generalists who enjoy author interviews with scholarly texture. It also suits students and educators looking for conceptual bridges between mathematics, history, philosophy, science, and cognition.
What sets it apart: Rather than presenting math as puzzles or quick lessons, the show follows recent books into the intellectual histories and live questions behind the field. Its strength is letting authors explain difficult ideas at length while keeping the conversation accessible enough for non-specialists.
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/mathematics
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Book-centered conversations make advanced mathematics and its connections to history, cognition, and the universe easier to follow.
New Books in Mathematics turns books into patient academic interviews about how mathematical ideas work and where they lead. Its range stretches from induction and different kinds of infinity to Victorian statistics, cosmic scale, and mathematical models of cognition.
Mathematical induction becomes a stepladder, and your old math-class grudge has somewhere to go.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Giant numbers, cosmic scale, and a careful question about what mathematics can really explain.
Antonio Padilla's Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them moves from huge numbers to a quieter question: whether mathematics describes the universe or sits beside it.
A careful conversation about whether mathematics can help explain the mind.
The episode takes on a serious question: whether human thinking can be described through formal mathematical principles, and which frameworks fit the mind best.
A careful interview that makes Victorian statistics feel clear without rushing the argument.
Victorian Britain comes into focus as a world learning to think with numbers: factories, government records, political economy, and the uneasy sense that data could describe more than it could explain.
A patient tour of infinity, maps, and the hidden logic of everyday structure.
Milo Beckman, author of Math Without Numbers, treats mathematics less like a set of tricks and more like a way of sorting what can be known. The conversation moves from countable infinity to the continuum, then to maps, calendars, and heat maps, without losing the ground under…
A focused conversation on Jim Stein's Seduced by Mathematics and the appeal of mathematical induction.
New Books in Math stays close to Jim Stein and Seduced by Mathematics, which gives the episode a clear center. Caleb Zacharin lets Stein unpack the title, the book’s setup, and the childhood question about proving a pattern of sums that first pushed him toward proof.
Overlooked lives, read from the sources, talked through warmly.
Mike Duncan narrates Rome's full history solo, from Aeneas to Romulus Augustulus's exile in 476.
Antonio Padilla discusses Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them.
Gregory McNiff speaks with Tom Griffiths about The Law of Thought and the long-running effort to understand the mind through mathematics.
This episode features an interview with Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek about their book exploring the intersection of biology, mathematics, and artificial intelligence through the concept of organisms as theoretical constructs.
This episode features an interview with James Franklin about his book 'The Necessities Underlying Reality: Connecting Philosophy of Mathematics, Ethics and Probability'.
This episode features an interview with cosmologist Andrew Jaffe about his book 'The Random Universe,' exploring how probability and statistical models help us understand the cosmos.
An interview with Thomas Maran about his book 'Underground Mathematics' on craft and knowledge production in early modern Europe.
This episode features an interview with Al Plazimentier about his book 'Mathmakers', which profiles 50 famous mathematicians with engaging anecdotes and historical context.
A scholar discusses the nature of mathematics as the study of deep patterns and structures in the universe, comparing it to a game of discovering rules.
An interview with Chris D'Arriva about his book on what numbers reveal about hit songs and ourselves.
This episode features an interview with Alan Downey about his book 'Probably Overthinking It', which explores how statistics and data can be used to answer questions, avoid common pitfalls, and improve decision-making in everyday life.
An interview with mathematician Anthony Buonato about his book on hidden networks in social media, AI, and nature.
This episode is an interview with a scholar discussing their recently published mathematics research.
This episode is a survey request and introduction to the New Books Network, which features interviews with scholars about their recently published research.
An interview with authors Ann Johnson and Johannes Lenhard about their book 'Cultures of Prediction: How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools' exploring the intersection of prediction, mathematical tools, and disciplinary evolution.
An interview with Dr.
An interview with mathematician Dave Richeson about his book on the history of four impossible geometry problems.
An interview with a scholar discussing their recently published mathematical research.
An academic interview podcast where scholars discuss their recently published research in mathematics.
Morteza Hajizadeh talks with Lawrence Goldman about nineteenth-century Britain and the rise of statistical thinking.
Jim Stein talks with Milo Beckman about Math Without Numbers.
An interview with Professor Athene Donald about her recently published research in mathematics.
Scholars discuss their recently published mathematics research with another expert in the field.
An interview with Dr.
An interview with economists Andrea Robette and Jeff Carpenter about their recent research in game theory and behavioral economics.
Jim Stein joins Caleb Zacharin to talk about *Seduced by Mathematics* and the book's subtitle, *The Enduring Fascination of Mathematics*.
This episode features an interview with mathematician John Allen Paulos discussing his book 'Who's Counting?' which explores numeracy through stories from pop culture, puzzles, and politics.
Host Jim Stein interviews mathematician Al Pazimentier about his book 'The Secret Lives of Numbers' on the New Books in Mathematics podcast.
Host Jim Stein interviews Alexander Draganov about his book on mathematical tools for real-world applications, exploring how engineers and scientists approach math differently from mathematicians.
An interview with Dr.
An interview with a scholar discussing their recently published mathematics research.
Host Jim Stein interviews John Stilwell about his book 'The Story of Proof', tracing the evolution of proof in mathematics.
This episode features an interview with Karen Hunger Parshall about her book on the development of American mathematics from 1920 to 1950.