Speaker: Mathemagician Arthur Benjamin

Length: 6:25

Rating 4 / 5

Summary

Math should be taught for 3 reasons:

•  Calculation: to work out an answer
• Application: to apply the method
• Inspiration: for the fun, beautiful patterns and logical thinking behind it.

Arthur argues Inspiration is underappreciated. He shows the beauty of Fibonacci numbers and how it ties to nature

• number of petals on a flower tends to be Fibonacci number
• patterns in numbers: sum of squares of a Fibonacci number equals another Fibonacci, and cumulative sum of all squares equals product of 2 consecutive Fibonacci numbers.

Maths isn’t just solving for ‘x’, it’s also about figuring out ‘y’ (why?).

Critique

Arthur is excited by the numbers, and gets bonus points for being called a ‘Mathemagician’. The idea of the talk was to refocus maths on finding patterns then investigating how they come about – making it more fun and feel relevant to the world around it.

A fun talk, and especially to fit so many interesting points in 6mins.