Mathematical Moments from the American Mathematical Society
Mathematical Moments promote an appreciation and understanding of the role mathematics plays in science, nature, technology, and human culture. Hear experts talk about how they use mathematics in various applications from improving film animation to analyzing voting strategies.
- Update frequency
- every 24 days
- Average duration
- 6 minutes
- Episodes
- 141
- Years Active
- 2005 - 2024
Tapering AI Limits with Mathematcial Formalization
Dr. Alex Best, of Harmonic discusses AI's struggles with technical and ethical limitations like uninterpretable methods and a lack of diverse datasets make facial recognition and medical software dan…
00:15:11 |
Tue 03 Dec 2024
Unlocking the Secrets of AI
Dr. Kristen Lauter, director of FAIR (Fundamental AI Research) Labs, Meta, North America, discusses how cryptographers are using AI.
Online, private information is secured using difficult-to-s…
00:12:07 |
Tue 03 Dec 2024
Modernizing Math with Artificial Intelligence
Dr. Po-Shen Loh of Carnegie Mellon University, discusses the how AI is changing the landscape of mathematics and looks ahead at what might come.
As algorithms have matured, mathematicians have…
00:12:50 |
Thu 24 Oct 2024
Smashing Particles up Against Mathematics
Dr. Abiy Tasissa of Tufts University, discusses the mathematics he and colleagues used to study particle collider data, including optimal transport and optimization.
Collider physics often r…
00:09:31 |
Fri 08 Mar 2024
Supporting Wildlife with Statistics
Dr. Outi Tervo of Greenland Institute for Natural Resources, shares how mathematics helps recommend speed limits for marine vessels, which benefits narwhals and Inuit culture.
Narwhals "can o…
00:09:31 |
Fri 16 Feb 2024
Explaining Wildfires Through Curvature
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 y…
00:11:57 |
Tue 17 Oct 2023
Bridges and Wheels, Tricycles and Squares
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.…
00:11:57 |
Fri 13 Oct 2023
Bringing Photographs to Life
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 …
00:11:57 |
Thu 13 Jul 2023
Giving Health Care Policy a Dose of Mathematics
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 hea…
00:11:31 |
Wed 05 Apr 2023
Using Math to Support Cancer Research
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 gr…
00:10:15 |
Thu 29 Dec 2022
Keeping the Lights On
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…
00:14:39 |
Tue 15 Nov 2022
Driving Up Air Pollution
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 mi…
00:12:24 |
Tue 28 Jun 2022
Deblurring Images
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 t…
00:10:44 |
Thu 19 May 2022
Exploring Thermodynamics with Billiards
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 …
00:13:36 |
Mon 14 Feb 2022
Pinpointing How Genes Interact
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 informatio…
00:14:29 |
Thu 21 Oct 2021
Securing Data in the Quantum Era
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 …
00:13:53 |
Wed 01 Sep 2021
Taking the "Temperature" of Languages
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 …
00:17:39 |
Tue 06 Jul 2021
Doing the Math
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 wor…
00:11:11 |
Mon 24 May 2021
Making Room for Patients
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 …
00:15:26 |
Mon 26 Apr 2021
Fighting Fires
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 …
00:18:06 |
Mon 22 Mar 2021
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