Episode notes
IMSI is very proud to announce that Carry the Two is back and with a new co-host, IMSI’s new Director of Communications and Engagement Sam Hansen! We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this episode, the first episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we speak with mathematician Ismar Volić of Wellesley College and Director of the Institute for Mathematics and…
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Carry the Two
IMSI · Tech & Science · English
Carry the Two pulls back the curtain to reveal the mathematical and statistical gears that turn the world. We’re the show for people who enjoy discovering hidden elements that impact our lives in the most unexpected ways, and math is certainly one of those! We are a curiosity-driven podcast that
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S4 · E6 · 31 Oct 2024 · 44 min
Mathematics & Polling
We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this, the sixth and final episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we dig into both how surveys and polls are conducted and how they are reported. For the former we are joined by David Dutwin Senior Vice President at NORC and Chief Scientist of Amerispeak and for the latter by Nathaniel Rakich Senior Editor and Senior…
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S4 · E5 · 23 Oct 2024 · 33 min
Political Numbers & Statistics
We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this episode, the fifth episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we dig into political numbers and statistics. Helping Sam and Sadie do the digging is Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, FRS, OBE, emeritus professor of statistics at the University of Cambridge, former Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the…
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S4 · E4 · 17 Oct 2024 · 36 min
Mathematics & Political Geography
In this episode, the fourth episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we dig into two stories about the intersection of political geography and mathematics. The first story comes from Ranthony Clark and is about her work with the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group around identifying communities of interest, with a focus on her in Ohio alongside CAIR Ohio, the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC), the Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission, and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State. The second story is about polling sites in cities, and the places…
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S4 · E3 · 9 Oct 2024 · 30 min
Mathematics & Political Coalitions
We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this, the third episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we speak to Andrea Mock, Gunnar Carlsson, Samin Aref, and Zachary Neal. We dig into what mathematics has to say about the stability of political coalitions, how mediators can make coalitions more stable, the ways in which Democrats and Republicans can be clustered…
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S4 · E2 · 2 Oct 2024 · 34 min
Mathematics & Representation
We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this episode, the second episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we speak again with mathematician Ismar Volić of Wellesley College and Director of the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy and Theodore R. Johnson, a scholar of Black electoral politics, a military veteran, and a contributing columnist at The Washington…
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19 Sep 2023 · 6 min
Carry the Two Farewell (for now)
Find our transcript here: LINK Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (mastodon) https://sciencemastodon.com/@IMSI, (instagram) IMSI.institute Follow Sadie Witkowski: https://www.sadiewit.com/, @SadieWit This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. The Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) is funded by NSF grant DMS-1929348.
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5 Sep 2023 · 40 min
Caitlin Parrish and Allyson Ettinger on AI & the WGA Strike
In this classic episode, we explore how GPT-3, a free online natural language processing artificial intelligence by Open AI, does and doesn’t work. Make sure to stick around until the end for an update on how AI is a core demand between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. GPT-3 takes advantage of a whole new method of artificial intelligence research, called neural nets, to create plays, write code, and even roleplay as a historical figure. But what are the limitations to this kind of AI? University of Chicago professor Allyson Ettinger…
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22 Aug 2023 · 30 min
Jamie Barty on Visual Effects in Television
Were you impressed by the underwater scenes in Avatar 2? Have you spent hours trying to figure out how they built the ice wall in Game of Thrones? Everything from big effects like these to smaller hidden visual effects like creating a skyline for an indoor set fall under the purview of visual effects. In this episode of Carry the Two, we get a behind-the-scenes tour of how Fuse FX effects supervisor Jamie Barty from I’m a Virgo leads a team to achieve these effects - and the copious amounts of mathematics that come into play! Find our transcript here: LINK Curious to learn more? Check out…
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8 Aug 2023 · 18 min
Tara Kerin on The Last of Us
Could a fungus really wipe out the majority of humans, as shown in the HBO (Max) series The Last of Us? How realistic is the show’s portrayal of epidemiology? Guest and project scientist at UCLA, Tara Kerin explores these questions and how statistics are a core tool in her field of research. Find our transcript here: LINK Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links: The San Diego Comic Con International masquerade ball: https://www.comic-con.org/cci/newsletter/sunday How to calculate R0 (R-naught): https://globalhealth.harvard.edu/understanding-predictions-what-is-r-naught/…
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25 Jul 2023 · 32 min
Robert Rosner and Paul Wilson on Oppenheimer
The world, and the US in particular, have a complicated history with nuclear fission. Splitting atoms led to both the development of nuclear energy and weapons with catastrophic power. In the film Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan explores these issues. Here we expand this examination to the seminal work done in the Midwest. In this episode of Carry the Two, we speak with nuclear engineer from the University of Wisconsin, Paul Wilson, and University of Chicago physicist, Robert Rosner. They unveil how the University of Chicago was a key research site that tested theories of Oppenheimer…
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