Math-Life Balance

About Math-Life Balance

The official podcast version of Mura Yakerson's YouTube channel Math-Life Balance. What Mura has to say about the content: "In this [podcast] I post my non-professional interviews with professional mathematicians. I ask my colleagues about their personal experience in math, their struggles and lifehacks. I hope that this shared experience would be helpful for other people in the math community, especially for young mathematicians!"

Publisher

Mura Yakerson

Category

science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

25 Feb 2021

Latest episode

23 Feb 2026

Latest episodes

33 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   23 Feb 2026

   Let's talk about "Women in math"! with Olga Paris-Romaskevich

   This episode is about women in math, from the perspective of sociology! Many thanks to Olga Paris-Romaskevich for the conversation. Olga's webpage: https://olga.pa-ro.net/ (https://olga.pa-ro.net/) The book "Matheuses": https://www.insmi.cnrs.fr/fr/matheuses (https://www.insmi.cnrs.fr/fr/matheuses) Here is a link for Olga's talk on gender and mathematics: https://amubox.univ-amu.fr/s/SBRqbTLHSG5PFMF (https://amubox.univ-amu.fr/s/SBRqbTLHSG5PFMF) Here is a list of references Olga used when spoke about social psychology: 1) Definition of social stereotype : (Leyens, Yzerbut, Schadron, 1994), slide 7 2) Stereotype threat result : Spencer, Steele, & Quinn (1999). Stereotype Threat and Women’s Math Performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35 Social psychology : stereotype threat, slides 9 and 10 3) Aronson, J., Lustina, M. J., Good, C., Keough, K., Steele, C. M., & Brown, J. (1999). When White men can't do math: Necessary and sufficient factors in stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), 29–46. 4) pp.12-13 : John VS Jennifer study Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, & Handelsman (2012). PNAS, 109, 16474-16479 5) Begeny, C. T., Ryan, M. K., Moss-Racusin, C. A., & Ravetz, G. (2020). In some professions, women have become well represented, yet gender bias persists- Perpetuated by those who think it is not happening. Science advances, 6(26), eaba781 0:00 teaser 1:03 Olya's book about "math girls" 5:38 why there are so few women in math 9:01 brilliance as social construct 14:11 russian tease of women in math 18:05 math in the sociology book 22:35 why to make women only math events 30:33 and why we definitely need them 34:19 how to make a good outreach event 38:33 cool gender equity initiatives 41:12 Mura's experience in math as a girl 46:55 female role models in math 51:18 homage to Sophia Kovalevskaya 53:34 fun facts everyone should know! 58:56 moral support for women in math

2. 

   16 Feb 2026

   Interview with Richard Schwartz

   Richard is a math professor at Brown University as well as an author of very funny books about math for kids! Enjoy learning about Richard and his adventures in the world of math and art :) Richard's webpage: https://www.math.brown.edu/reschwar/ (https://www.math.brown.edu/reschwar/) Chapters: 0:00 teaser 0:33 why math books for kids 5:22 crazy cool visualizations vs obsessions 8:50 most of math is failure 13:23 accessibility vs precision in papers 17:55 what about abstract more math 23:25 being Thurston's student 29:32 advice for those who feel not good enough at math 32:42 how Richard almost quit math 34:41 story from Mura about Berkeley woods 35:45 Richard's famous April 1st prank 43:16 and other pranks 44:43 and the mask! oh my god the mask

3. 

   9 Feb 2026

   Interview with Jordan Ellenberg

   Jordan is a mathematician as well as an author of popular books about mathematics, with great sense of humour. And this interview goes as wild as the picture of the interviewee on his webpage! Jordan's webpage: https://people.math.wisc.edu/~ellenberg/ (https://people.math.wisc.edu/~ellenberg/) Chapters: 0:00 intro 0:28 a year of writing fiction 4:12 what's hard about writing 11:31 finding math everywhere 15:19 cool thoughts on writing 22:58 teaching writing to math folks 24:55 pain & joy of bad writing 29:15 Jordan's workshop where we met 34:30 how to know when the article is ready 38:34 how to make interviews? 45:51 Mura complaining about interviewees :) 51:26 how people really feel about math 54:55 how to survive the lack of feedback 1:03:32 bringing standup tricks into writing 1:09:08 sentimental approach to finishing books 1:12:00 Jordan's book recommendation for us

Reach and audience

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

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