Have you ever wondered why you learnt integration at school? Do you wake at night in a cold sweat, worried all that time spent looking at fractions may have been a waste of your youth? Are you currently sitting in a maths lesson asking how any of this will be relevant in your adult life? If you are, then stop looking at your phone and listen to your teacher. But afterwards, join Hugo, Emily and Day as they dive head first into the world of High School Mathematics.
What's the Point of Algebra? is a podcast for anyone who ever has, or ever will, study maths at school (aka anyone ever). Each week we choose a new subject from the Edexcel GCSE Higher Mathematics textbook*, chat about it and try desperately to understand how it applies to the average adult life. Which it does, sometimes… Honestly!
From calculating the probability of winning the lottery, to guessing how much the weekly shop is going to cost, we are determined to find out, What's the Point of Algebra?
*We are in no way associated with Edexcel, and are certain that they'd be furious to find out we're trying to make their textbook interesting
It's time again to work out why they bothered teaching us maths, can it be useful in our everyday lives? In this episode, Hugo, Day and Emily are returning to their roots... with a look at special indices. What does it mean for something to be to the power of a minus number? Is that useful for anything? Time to find out! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, we'd always love to hear from you at thepointofalgebra@gmail.com, or on Twitter
8 Nov 2021
x = 4 → What’s The Point of a Googolplex?
We're back! Hugo had the audacity to get married, so it took far too long to put this episode together. But we are back! In this episode Hugo, Emily and Day continue their mission to apply GCSE maths to our everyday adult lives, by examining powers... indices... those little numbers floating above other numbers. This time, Emily surprises herself with her GCSE maths memory, Day is expressing herself with maths, and Hugo may finally be stumped. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, we'd always love to hear from you at thepointofalgebra@gmail.com, or on Twitter
20 Sept 2021
x = 3 → What’s The Point of Party Food?
Episode 3 of What's the Point of Algebra? deals with a topic that not even our hosts can say correctly. Hugo, Emily and Day continue their delve into GCSE maths, by looking at how useful lowest common multiples and highest common factors are. In this episode, Day has their knowledge of film and musical theatre put to the test. Emily realises that ridiculous names are a common factor for her family. And Hugo, as always, makes the mistake of thinking your typical person on the street has the same problems as an astrophysicist.
13 Sept 2021
x = 2 → What’s The Point of a Snail Omelette?
If we've kept track of everything correctly, we estimate this is our second episode... This week, Hugo, Emily and Day continue their delve into GCSE maths, and how it can be used in our everyday lives, by looking at estimation. In this episode, Hugo estimates how many snail eggs one has to break, to make an omelette. Emily estimates the cost of her weekly shop with terrifying precision. And Day estimates the winner of a race between a tortoise and a Mustang.
6 Sept 2021
x = 1 → What’s The Point of Being Frilly?
In their first episode, Hugo, Emily and Day look at combinatorics... which is a totally not made up way of saying how many different ways someone can make a choice. Plus, Emily learns what an exclamation point is, Day challenges us to share out frills amongst the cast of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Hugo gets waaay too excited about an eighty-year-old murder mystery.
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