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Well this was a collaboration I wasn't expecting...

I like how Adam keeps calling it "Maths" to be polite to Matt, and Matt keeps calling it "Math" to be polite to Adam.

Hearing Adam say “maths” and Matt say “math” the entire video was quite a head trip.

Honestly can't believe this is happening, Adam and Matt have both given me so much joy over the years, it's incredible to see them both in the same video! Also here are the actual rules of the Collatz conjecture: If x even -> x/2 If x odd -> 3x+1 (Someone had to do it)

Best Quote: "Everyone needs a Brady"

The "I don't know" aspect can have humorous connotations: There is the story of a famous British physicist giving a lecture on some new theoretical concept. He got to a part on his scribbles on the chalkboard going from one set of equations to another and said, "It is intuitively obvious that this leads to that," and was just going to swap over when he looked at the two formulae and said to himself, out loud, "Is it intuitively obvious?" He shook his head and exited the room, leaving his audience wondering what was going on. Some time later, he triumphantly marches back into the room, displays a thick sheet of paper with his scribbles all over it, and says, "Yes, it IS intuitively obvious!" and continues the lecture...

Oh my, you two guys together on one screen? Incredible!

I didn’t know it until Adam said it but I remember having the same feeling when I asking a teacher a question in their response being I don’t know but we can figure it out. Difference between teachers who care and want to teach and teachers who don’t.

I'm impressed by Matt's math/maths switch.

Imagine how much farther along we'd be if we'd share our mistakes. Teach your kids that mistakes are how we learn, and never berate them or shame them for making a mistake.

I am continually impressed at how well Adam's personality meshes with other creators and performers. Matt Parker, Kyle Hill and Michael Stevens all have quite distinct personalities, and yet they all make such brilliant conversation and craft partners with Adam. It might just be that Adam is ridiculously personable.

On the question of how to get people to not be afraid of maths, I'm not a school teacher but I've had a lot of success with making games that teach the practice of an equation. The question is "Why do I want to know this?" The answer should be either it's useful or it's fun. Having a game that is fun, not a boring memorization exercise with a game slapped over it, is a great way of getting people interested. I think that's the core of the idea of using magic tricks to teach maths. So maths teachers should be game designers.

All this praise for Brady Haran, now I want Adam to travel to London and go on Objectivity and use the White Gloves of Destiny. Ten times.

The videos where Adam is doing a one-on-one interview with someone in his own home had always been fun to watch. Maybe there's going to be an audio podcast version...?

Hearing about Matt's first experiences and interests with math brings me some fond memories from my own childhood. If it weren't for my ma and my grandpa(Ma being a puzzle junkie, and grandpa a chess addict), I think I wouldn't have cultivated such interest in mathematics. Matt is a truly amazing human being for showing this brighter, goofier side of mathematics, as well as the depth and relationship it has with all manners of human life and entertainment. This sense of wonder and interest is absolutely contagious, and a huge service to society and to the science and art of mathematics. If only everyone had this enthusiasm, this giant off-the-rails puzzle game would be way more appreciated by youth and adults alike.

36:20 Matt Parker and Hydraulic Press channel collab?

The most frustrating math experience I've ever had was in a university statistics class. The professor was using π as a variable. I don't know if I missed it but as far as I know she never explained that she was using π as a variable so I kept getting problems wrong as I assumed π = 3.14...... .

now i want a meeting between tom scott and adam.

I'm studying a maths degree and I'm finding the subject matter tough. It's so nice to hear someone say "Sometimes it's ok to get it wrong" or "Maths isn't about always getting it right."

Best thing my mother did for me as a child was making a game out of calculating the total cost for groceries faster than the clerk scanning the items. By the time I was eight I could routinely do so including figuring the sales tax. There was one particular clerk at the corner store who once she learned what I was doing started trying to race me when scanning items so I had as little time as possible to see the prices before the next one popped up on the till. I loved when we had her at the check out because it made it an actual challenge.

5:34 the famous Parker-Collatz conjecture odd x ==> x*2 even x ==> x/3 or something it started with such confidence :D

Adam and Matt make my favorite videos now and I cannot believe it took the UKposts algorithm so long to put this in front of me. As someone who is passionate about math and currently going back to school for Mathematics Teaching this video hits home on so many levels. Especially when it comes to getting something wrong. Thank you both for creating such beautiful content and adding another voice to the problem with the way we look at teaching math.

the part about math as a recreational activity describes my childhood perfectly! i remember talking math at the dinner table growing up. i even did test runs on the math quizzes my mom made for her students. my dad has a masters of engineering degree and my mom has a masters of science degree and their attitude towards math played a huge role in how i came to like it too! and even if i am currently in the humanities field i still love puzzles and math to be a part of my recreational activities! i will definitely buy this book and read it, before handing it over to my parents. i think we will all enjoy it!

I always love hearing people enthusiastically talking and sharing anecdotes about their passions, so this was fantastic...

I love so so much getting to see two of my favorite UKposts creators just sitting down for a chat. This was a real treat.

Two of my fave people ever. Reducing confusing shit to levels that we mere mortals can almost understand...

I am a retired high school math teacher with Bachelor and Masters degrees. I subscribe to both Tested and Numberphile and really enjoy them. In regards to the perception of what kind of people go into math, my students always used to think that I must have been some sort of nerdy egghead when I was in school. But they were always very surprised when I told them that I went into math because of sex appeal - I met a pretty girl who was a math major. So I switched my major from biology to math so that I could spend more time with her! We've been married 43 years now and I've never regretted either decision!

We got Brady and Matt, now we need Cliff Stoll

This is one of my top 5 tested videos so far. Reading the book during my morning commute. We are doomed as a species unless we are more open about our mistakes.

What a great interview! Adam Savage’s Tested is one of my new favorite channels!!!

I was looking forward to this video. What a great way to start a new series. Two smart and funny guys who inspire learning with their infectious enthusiasm.

So happy to see us start at the parker square. Much love, Matt!

Such an incredible collaboration! So awesome that you both actually know of each other

I enjoy how Matt's saying "math" and Adam's saying "maths".

I really much enjoyed this interview! Thank you

"If you learn this skill now, you can annoy your friends and family" one of Matts best lines, which is saying a lot.

Absolutely ADORE this video. I came across this by accident, while taking a break from writing a very long and tedious document, and I actually feel inspired again.

Great video! What could you enjoy more than two enthusiastic people talking about what they like. I can totally see why in engineering you can't share the mistakes even if you wanted to. Usually it doesn't matter if you learned, people remember your company as the ones who messed up and try to hire somebody who doesn't have that title on their forehead. I guess it's the feedback loop all the way from the beginning saying you don't want to make mistakes, you want to be spotless. Even when they quote edison saying he found 999 ways to not succeed to come to the answer. I also remember those teachers, or substitute teachers, who stopped to figure out something after they were asked and it felt really engaging. We were suddenly part of the team, all of us, and it became so much easier to ask questions in the future too. You discovered they don't know everything and that they too figure things out through hard work. A lot of the uni teachers luckily go through that when they haven't prepared something and you get the feeling that you can figure it out yourself as well, through some logical steps.

This was delightful. Thank you both.

Omg this is awesome, never thought I'd see the two of you in one stream!

I love Matt Parker, and a recent big fan of Adam Savage. Because of this video, I went out and purchased the audiobook of Humble Pi. So far, it is incredible!

What a lovely man. Really enjoyed his talk and they had some of the best chemistry I've seen in a tested interview. Well done! Love these segments while I work.

This is a great interview. Adam and Matt have great chemistry together and I would love to see more collaboration between them!

When my wife and I were raising our son we had alternate schedules that enabled us to give full time with our son. My wife came home one day and caught me playing with a Thomas The Tank Engine train track. I told her I was trying to make a track using every piece of track. She was hooked in. We spent a week or so to the challenge. Then we added in to complete it in smaller area. It was great fun. By the way, my wife was raised on logic puzzles. Daddy would come home from a trip and give her a treat. I was raised on sugar and TV.

Thank you both for this wonderful video. Adam may I say I am a huge Mythbusters fan. Engineering was such a GIANT factor in it, therefore the MATH was essential to the proving the myths. And Matt thank you for letting kids know that math is a beautiful thing, and encouraging them to except failure and continue. I've always been a person that loved a mental challenge, and I had teachers that would always encourage me to continue. If only all teachers would be more involved with their students learning. I did have some teachers that just barely cared about if the students even were learning anything. Teachers need to find ways to get students more engaged in learning. And you guys do this so well. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Matt and Adam. I am a person with disabilities. In high school I comprehended Algebra. In college I failed and thus I had to drop out of my college program because there were three classes of Algebra were required. I understand the theory of Algebra, but I cannot process it correctly (brain injury?). Its not that i did not try, I just could not make it through the algebra. [I ruined a whole pile of pens being frustrated] What can one say the education system that believes that anyone can learn when you have persons like myself? Is there anyway to fight through this when 95% of the college classes require algebra for employment objectives? Adams circular puzzle was known as "the Brain". I got so good with that I could do it in 3 minutes!

2 of my favorite people... thx for this interview!

Studying now to become a math teacher as a second career and this has been truly great. Thank you.

I had a heart attack a couple of years ago, and was recuperating in a care facility. I got a friend to bring me a calculator so I could play with numbers, which I sometimes enjoy doing. Long story short, I decided to see if I could find a method of generating the sequences of numbers in the diagonals of Pascal's Triangle. Not being a mathematician, I didn't really expect to succeed, but I gave it a go - and I actually succeeded! Then a few weeks ago I found another, completely different method! I knew how to build the Triangle row by row using addition, but I wanted to see if I could find a way to build it diagonal by diagonal. It was a lot of fun! 🤓

"Patron saint of mediocrity +1" I have always described myself as having an addiction to learning new skills

Thanks for a great interview with Matt Parker. The interaction between Matt and Adam is very appealing because of their common interest in maths.

One of the best teaching methods i was ever part of consisted of three parts. They were called large group, small group, and labs. Not all classes had labs. But anyway, large group was the entire student body for a particular class sitting in a lecture room, and you were lectured at and took notes. No questions allowed usually. So large group could be over 100 students at a shot. Then, in small group, you'd sit down around a table, and 10-12 students and 1 teacher would discuss and elaborate on the large group lecture. So you got the big info dump in large group, a chance to really dig into the info in small group. It was the best of both worlds. And labs were just that, if you were taking a class that had any kind of lab work, that's when you did your labs.

You're an inspiration. Don't ever stop learning and exploring!

I have never been into maths and am terrible at it but I had a smile the whole video and now I want to learn more. Thank you for the wonderful chat.

I love seeing two of my favorite "polynerds" in the same space. You guys rock.

I had a ridiculously hard time with math until my junior year of highschool, where i actually had a math instructor who figured out that i needed to know WHY things worked, rather than just memorizing rules. Then, when i got to college, i had to take "Technical Math" which was the name of the course, and it started (at the college level, mind you), with a number line. But it made the rules of math make sense, instead of a bunch of rote rules. I think anybody could be good at math if they are taught math correctly. As in not learning a rule that doesn't make sense, and instead give you a set of rules that are consistent. And because they are consistent, you learn it once and use it forever after.

Brady's First Law - "Is there an infinite, or finite number of them?" is valid in any Numberphile video.

I still remember my math epiphany as a teenager. I grew up programming so already used math for that frequently, but my mind was blown when I learned about matrix transformations. I ran to the computer lab in the next period and whipped out a 3d rotating wireframe cube animation.

I am a lapsed computer science teacher and I have always admitted when I don’t know something. It does shock students though as they expect me to know everything. Like Matt said there are different levels of not knowing. With coding there is often a ‘what the hell....’ level where it (some code or a computer) does something unusual, often caused by a limit placed on the network due to it being in a school. I created an ISS tracker in Python that worked absolutely perfectly at home but refused point blank to run in the school. In the end it took my boss, the school IT tech and a visiting IT professional four hours to fix. I apologized profusely but was told it was the most fun they had had in ages. They had to write code that tricked the school firewall to let it create a temporary cache, and then only query the cache and not try to go back to the online data service. It meant the location of the ISS was only really correct the very first time the code was run, but we didn’t tell the kids that and everyone was happy. Fun times.

This thing about openness regarding mistakes .... I have an interesting account.. A little back ground ... My grandpa, my dad and my stepfather were all civil engineers and my mom was a delineator. This is no trivial thing in a child's life. Things like building a sugar cube mission, a log cabin, or an Indian wigwam (all of which were common projects for elementary students of my generation) became a major lesson in plum lines, angles, stress load, and a number of other things that were beyond most students in elementary school. Children in my family seldom had coloring books, we instead got rolls of old plains for houses and maps and such like that. That perhaps contributed to my 1st grade teacher's use of a the floor plan I drew when asked to draw a house as evidence that I was a bit "slow". Well, perhaps my floor plan was a bit "slow". After all she didn't have a a straight edge for me to use so it was all free hand. Then there was the bathroom which was the largest room in the house having 3 sinks, 2 toilets and 2 bathtubs. (I was 1 of 7 children and I though that was an excellent remedy to bathroom time congestion). I distinctively remember my dad's calm, patient, teaching tone as he explained to my teacher some very outstanding (for a 1st grade) features of my floor plan including the correct use of symbols for windows, doors and wall thinkness. This was the beginning of my concept that all people didn't know all things like my dad did (it wasn't until my teenage years that I momentarily though he was a blooming perfectist idiot). My dad when we got home from school using the same patient, calm, teaching voice to help me improve my floor plan. This may have been when I started to develop the idea that it was a very good idea that my dad and mom from time to time kept us out of school (more often than the school likee) so we could go see interesting projects their agency was working on.. So to the account about not revealing mistakes. One day the family was on a car trip and we children started asking about why same curves were banked more than others and why the straight road wasn't banked. We learned about cloverleaf and diamond acceleration / deceleration zones, the out ward force on an object making a turn, and my eldest sibling who was learning to drive knew that it felt more comfortable when making a curve at the correct speed. In the course of the conversation my dad told about an engineer who for thought that banking the curves the wrong way on a 2 lane country highway through the mountains would be a good way to keep people from speeding. My dad had told us believe it or not, not only was the plan conceived, and designed, it was approved and constructed. All of us children wanted to go see this road the next time we took a day trip. My dad told us he wouldn't tell us where it was because it was a secret but that most of us had been on the road. He told us that if we could individually identify the road giving good reasons for oir choice we could be in on the secret. We of course wanted to know why it was a secret. My dad explained that although the speed had been reduced in that area due to the curves and road conditions to make the road safe there would still be people that would try to sue the agency that designed and built the road if they had an accident on it. He explained that of course such people would have no case but it could still cost the agency millions of dollars to prove the persons attempting to sue had no case. I think this was the beginning of my thoughts about how dangerous it is to attempt to lay blame at all cost for things that happen without any malice or neglect.

Fantastic interview. I love Matt's videos and Numberphile and my wife thinks I'm a bit odd for watching math vids on UKposts. So an interview with my favourite maker just makes me feel like I'm in a room with friends! I've ordered teh book and am looking forward to a great read!

I love Parker and Savage for completely different reasons. This is an AWESOME duo.

Love this content so much. The meeting of 2 of my favorite guys! Small request: is it possible to hand-place where the ads fall? Most of them on this video were mid-word and it made it a little difficult to understand sometimes!

My “wow, maths can be interesting” was in A Level maths when I found out and did work out the mass of the moon by just knowing how far away it was and it’s orbit time.

I love that format ! More more more please

Adam Savage and Matt Parker, wonderful Video on Maths, and Humble Pi, Thank you. Watching was thought provoking on an issue or 3.14 issues, cool...

I love both your channels, Adam's, and also Matt's. I still learn so much from the both of you. This video reminded me of a discussion I had with a couple of friends about the following: What is 6/2(1+2) ? The way I learned is that you first have to get rid of the brackets, making it 6/2(3). Still brackets there, so 2 times 3 equals 6, no more brackets, boom problem solved. 6/6 ((2 times 3 before dividing by 6)), which would equal 1. But the interwebs exploded on this equation stating it should be 9 ((6 divided by 2, which equals 3, times 3 which would equal 9)). ..so my question is: 9 or 1????? ..I was and still am so bad at maths, despite the fact I understand how a Rubik's cube works and how a Rhombic Dodecahedron relates to Hard Spheres. But I just can't wrap my mind around maths when one source says X, and and another source says Y.. ..please help me understand this conundrum..

I just loved this discussion. I'm a self confessed math nerd, and anything that encourages others to expand their mind set is a winner in my 'book'.

I like how the pages count down so you know your progress towards the end.

It's a joy that Winston is still holding the list of attendees.

two of my favorite great thinkers in the world!

24:30 - YES! My grandfather had that same radial lever puzzle. I was *SO* happy when I figured it out, and eventually got to the point that I could solve it insanely fast without even looking at it, purely by feel. I loved that little puzzle.

I love it when the people I follow cross paths. I really hope Matt appears on the podcast or collaborations with math geeks starts to become a more regular thing.

Adam you never disappoint. Matt, that was a fantastic interview and your enthusiasm is inspiring. You make math fun.

I've noticed over the years that both Matt and Adam are extremely smart, (not a novel observation). However, Adam is "Right Brained" (intutative, thoughtful, and subjective) while his chosen profession since Mythbusters is one normally associated with "Left" brained (logical, analytical, and objective). He doesn't struggle with this, he is just that brilliant. This is such an unusual combination, though, where historically many others with such combinations sometimes are "fakes" or inventors of cooky and acentric ideas which never take off and yet they never let go. Matt is the exact opposite and yet also still not fake. They both are in the same business. This is such an interesting interview given such similarities and yet such strong contrasts.

These guys need a regular show together these are some of the best pieces of content either has.

This is awesome - more content like this is needed in the world.

A perfect square of an interview!

Oh god I love this collaboration so so much *-*

1) how often does Adam find the ruler tattoo useful 2) how often does he check it's accuracy

These two guys are such an inspiration to me and so much fun to watch....

I only started getting maths at university, where it went from pure theory with no grounding in reality to being application base. having discalcula i really struggle with pages of numbers but get mechanics. Great video.

Okay, I bought the book because of this, I'm not that much into recreational mathematics, but this discussion was spot on. Thank you both of you.

On the question of how to make maths more enjoyable. It turns out that I am completely rubbish at learning things by rote. I just don't memorise facts well and then retrieve them at will. What I am really good at, is learning something and then working out why it works like that, and then being able to reconstruct the rote learning from the underlying principles. This meant that early maths was terrible for me, because it as lots of memorisation and remembering what formula to use it what situation. At some point I needed to work out the hypotenuse\diagonal of a cube and after starting with the basic pythagoras, I quickly worked out that d^2=x^2+y^2+x^2. Now this may not seem like a great discovery but I was only 11 at the time, and this gave me the epiphany that maths wasn't something that I just needed to memorise, it was something that I could explore and remix for my own needs and that by understanding the principals I could creatively explore the world of numbers and what they represent. Maths needs more creativity and exploration over rote memorisation and regurgitation.

35:18 Awesome exchange between two of my favorite people on Earth...

I love these guys! Just looked down and realized I'm wearing my Parker square t-shirt 😂😂 perfect timing

Matt's a super friendly guy. Ran into him on a very cold day in downtown Boston when he was looking at the Hancock building. Watched him do a very smooth take to camera.. lol

Hearing Matt say "math" feels so wrong

Genuine excitement - that's what you have in common! And that's why I love watching you both!! :-)

Really enjoyable conversation.

Another mathematician to read - Adam Spencer from Australia. Informative and funny!

The Parker-Collatz conjecture: "If it's even, you divide by three" 5 ... 10 ... 3.33 Wait... is 3.33 even or odd?

Love the collabaration!!!

Matt introduced me to Tom Scott and the Technical Difficulties, for which I will be forever grateful. Also, his book's quite good!

Gents, nice inauguration of the re-purposed Talking Room. What I particularly like is... you both have taken your shoes off. Very nice and comfy. Good show. Good book.

two of my favorite people in the world! what a treat

I need a lot more of the two of them together

Fantastic to see Matt with Adam like this

Great to hear two of my heroes chatting! I'm intrigued by the bridge harmonic stuff, and the "human" energy input. I'd love to know if the Boston Dynamics robot will add energy to the system in the same way as a human... Is it more human or machine in its response to a moving floor?