2025-05-16
38 分钟Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet.
I'm producer Mia Sorrenti.
Today's episode is part two of our event recording with the Oxford professor and award-winning mathematician Marcus de Sotoy.
Marcus was in conversation with Dr. Shini Samara live at Conway Hall to discuss all things maths and creativity and the surprising relationship between the two.
If you missed part one, do just jump back an episode to get up to speed.
Now let's continue the conversation live at Conway Hall with Dr. Shini Samara.
The number three is masculine, and the number two is considered to be feminine.
And when you add them, it's five, golden ratio.
Yes, well, this is very interesting because, you know, here we see,
you know, cultures already understanding that mathematics has a kind of...
personalities involved in it.
And that, you know, Ramanujan, the famous Indian mathematician,
there was a play that I helped out on with complicity in a film.
He always used to say, I know every number as my own personal friend,
that every number has its own different quality to it.
And what's interesting is that many cultures are associated odd numbers with male and even numbers.
with female.
And the Chinese went even further and said, you know, the macho numbers are the primes,
because somehow you can't arrange them in any way into a kind of grid.
You know, 15 is three by five, but 17, there's no way.