It's the 100th episode of Tech Support! Thanks everyone! Check out the rest of the series here: ukposts.info/slow/PLibNZv5Zd0dwIx8baZGDdkoPNg6LHAPDi

"I'm professor Moon Duchin, comma, mathematician." It's not even a math joke, but it is such a thing a mathematician would say. I'm sold, this woman is legit.

As a mathematician, I cannot express how real the love of chalkboard is real AF.

this is my professor, and they were amazing. I really, really dreaded taking a math class, but honestly their class was so interesting. moon explains things so well. I went to office hours a couple of times and was always blown away by how smart and cool they are. So brilliant and also able to boil things down to my level.

As someone who recently got their BSc in Math, I loved every second of this video. Professor Moon Duchin is so passionate, I envy the students who got her as their professor. I think the main FAQ I hear about math is “When will I need this in my life?” The simple answer to the majority of it is that you do not, but that rather it’s the opportunity to think logically, problem solve, and critically think and examine that you do need in your everyday life.

As a math major I love seeing people express what makes math exciting. We take ‘simple’ concepts like the number zero and poke holes in it. Things fall apart. Things get ugly. But then we manage to find even more profound and elegant concepts in the scraps! It’s a very beautiful and liberating experience.

"Is it number-y." Perfect, incredible, I love this woman.

“We didn’t have to do it, but it’s pretty” Mathematics in a nutshell XD

I was never very good at math, but I can’t tell you how mesmerizing it is to listen to and watch someone who is so passionate about the subject explain it. There really aren’t words to describe it

Imagine if they do a "politician explains politics" The questions gonna be very interesting😂

“You can think of pi like this if you’re allergic to circles” 💀 Real talk, math major here. This woman is a true mathematician because she knows that not all mathematicians process the same concepts in the same ways. Some people need to be able to associate a concept with a shape i.e. draw it out, where as others can think of things numerically i.e equations and power series. So rad. So math.

When she talked about how ppl in math don't/can't explain their subject matter enough to the public, I felt it in my soul. When I was young, I really liked math, I felt like I understood it and could be proud of it, I even wanted to be a mathematician, it was a time when explanations made sense and weren't a handful of unintelligible(to me) jargon that had me stopping every 5 minutes asking for a more precise description. As that kept happening, repeatedly, where I constantly asked my teachers and felt like I was inconveniencing everybody, I eventually stopped asking for an explanation, stopped feeling curiosity, and steadily lost my love for math. It felt like the silent breakup couples have, you don't say it upfront, but you know there's a distance, and the boat to cross it had sunk deep down.

I HATE math, but I LOVED this video, this professor is amazingly passionate, well-spoken, and allowed me to think something I NEVER thought I would or ever could, she made math interesting. We’ll done professor, we’ll done!

i love how she describes math as pretty it humanises it. math is seen as so cold and objective but what coldness can there be in something that is used to explain the nature of the universe purely out of curiousity and passion?

What a great teacher! I almost understood everything she said, and I hate math.

This mathematician should have a youtube channel

As someone who hated maths and still does..I really liked how she explained things which obviously went over my head but she's got a charming personality and I am sure no students would get bored in her class. Amazing teacher.

Very cool person! Glad Wired is bringing all of these experts for us to learn

Very cool! Definitely try to invite her on again, really like how she explains stuff. Doing a "5 Levels of" for math would be difficult but if anyone can do that, she can.

I could literally listen to Professor Moon talk about math for the rest of my life and be beyond content. I'm a geologist, math (and especially Calculus) terrifies me but I KNOW its importance and have invested significant portions of my soul to understand it so that I can be a geologist that my field needs. #MoreOfMoon

not a math fan myself, but watching Moon Duchin speak with such a passion made me so curious about math. I would love to have a teacher as great as her :3

She makes being a mathematician sound so dope and fun. Science is awesome.

If those Pringles are real I admire the way she didn't reach for one every 10 seconds.

I love the way she talks about math, you can tell how much she loves it. I love being around people with real passion like that

After so many years, I'm convinced the problem of mathematics being considered hard/boring isn't mathematics itself, but how THEY TEACH them. I suffered with maths throughout elementary and middle school. It was a nightmare. But then a wonderful teacher at high school, who didn't mind bringing a huge case (literally, she carried it everyday like it was her sword and shield) full of all sorts of stuff, made my generation fell in love with maths. Everything was "going back to basics" as part of the last segment of her class: she then opened her _magic case_ and took out bottle caps, cords, pieces of wood, marbles, sticks, chains, plastic cups, dominoes, little dolls, action figures, old coins. Anything served. She then said "if you can _manipulate_ maths, and I mean touch them, see them, even smell them... it'll be easier. Trust me". We were a bit reluctant and mistrustful the first week. I confess I even thought what kind of drugs did she take on a regular basis. But oh man, I was wrong. Not only it was fun and relaxing to start doing math problems with all that stuff, but in a very prodigious way... she fixed the awful void I was been carrying all my life, regarding maths. I'm being honest: I finally understood fractions (in its formal meaning) until I was 16. How she made it? We formed a percussionist enssemble (we were horrible, but it was fun) with her as our conductor, using our hands, sticks and cups as musical instruments. We then analyzed time signatures and the magic was WE WERE ABLE TO HEAR THE FRACTIONS AND WE COULD PLAY WITH THEM! I'll never forget the class reaction. It was that beautiful moment of mind clearness. And then... you smile. She was the best teacher I ever had. Always full of energy, enthusiasm, new ideas and good humor. She loved her profession and she made us love maths. She passed away in 2015. I miss her so much. I bet she's still teaching maths in heaven. Of course, with the aid of her huge magic case. Oh boy. A big thanks to all math teachers who are always in the pursuit of new ways of teaching and also think about their student needs.

I'm a mathematics student now, and in all honesty, I'd much rather be an average mathematician but have this ability to communicate what I do and why I do it, than be the next Euler or Gauss. A groundbreaking mathematical proof is no good if you can't explain to the public why you care about it and why they should too. It's people like this that inspire kids to become mathematicians.

I highly agree with the part "We're really bad at telling people what we are doing" 🤣 I often see these experts explaining in 5 levels like to a 5yr old, to a teenager, yeah I can never do that lol!

She is so well spoken its impressive It can be extremely hard to explain difficult things in an « understandable by all » way but she did an excellent job !

One of the most incredible Q & A I have ever watched on UKposts. I just love this!

The way she is explaining those complicated topics is impressive.

She looks like she would be a nice teacher.

I love the excitement and enthusiasm this mathematician has for numbers and equations. Truly something I’m not able to fathom.

This is the bessssst episode of Tech Support ever! She does such a good job making it all understandable and fun.

Thank you wired for having a mathematician on. As a fellow math major this was a fun episode.

I appreciate her approach of bringing up lesser known and historically underrepresented people for her answer of "who is the greatest mathematician," but I wanted to add what is the "traditional" answer to that question, that being Leonhard Euler. There's a joke in the math community that things in math are named after the first person to discover it after Euler; otherwise everything would be named for Euler.

I could watch an hour of this! It’s great to see someone genuinely excited about what they do.

I realize I’m late to this party, but I just wanted to add my admiration for Prof. Duchin to the pile. I got to the end of the video and felt genuine regret that I’d never had a math professor like this, because I felt like if I had I might have gone into math academia and loved it. Thanks for spreading your passion in such an accessible way! :)

I feel like if I had math teachers like this, I would have ended up way more interested in math and way more confident! LOVE the experts you find for these

“They spelled it algorhythm… I like it, I’m gonna keep it” - the world’s coolest mathematician. Also, as a Classicist/Philosopher, we also looovvveee real blackboards. There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of finishing an enormous irregular Latin declension chart or determining a complex argument is valid with a massive truth table on a real blackboard with chalk. I’m honestly just trying to find things in common with Professor Duchin because I love her.

props to whoever has to condense what the expert said into a whatever character count tweet, it always makes me anxious when they talk a bunch and I can't imagine a proper way of synthesizing the info.

What I like about this video, is that the professor doesn't answer the questions directly, but rather addresses the reason for the question, which ends up being a lot more informative. For instance, the "times before plus question" could be easily answered by saying that it doesn't matter, since whatever choice you make you can still use brackets to express anything you want. But that is not a helpful answer, so the explanation given in the video talking about the "rules of mathematics" is much more illuminating. Like the comparison with chess too.

Math is so cool after you finally have a grasp on it. You’ll see it everywhere and it’ll blow your mind how entire fields of math are all based around a simple clever idea.

13:47 The most commonly asked question, "when will we ever use this?" We will either have to come up with a better response or change the material we teach.

This was my first viewing of this series. I am quite flabbergasted and impressed. I liked the way(s) you defined imaginary numbers and Zero. That always perplexed me. Thank you.

I love the way you answer questions. They are both respectful and enlightening. Thank you!

I don't know where Wired finds the people for this series! But once again, another absolute gem. Moon sounds like the kind of teacher everyone needs to experience at least once in their life: someone whose enthusiasm for their field of study is contagious.

Japanese chalk? Yep, that's def Hagoromo chalk haha. Although I'm an econ student, I love this chalk. First learned about it on my first year in a Japanese university. Even my finance prof loves it so much he told us everything about the chalk once during a short break in his lecture. Kept on going and on about it. We were all raptured by it btw haha

Thank you for making math interesting! I have a love/hate with numbers outside of my career in accounting/bookkeeping thanks to grade school teachers just writing on a board and expecting us to copy and learn. Maybe if I had someone enthusiastic teaching mathematics, it wouldn't have seemed so difficult and boring. You're amazing!

I love her! I honestly dont even like maths so idk why i clicked onto this video, but i actually enjoyed listening to her. She is so engaging and explains things simple enough that i can sort of understand most things she's saying. Great job wired! I hope u guys bring back more interesting people to talk about various topics!

i was confused throughout the whole video but she was so pleasant and passionate about everything so I kept watching

She’s so cool and passionate about what she does! I love how she’s so easy to understand in her explanations :)

This professor is so motivated :) I would have loved to have a class with her back in my university days.

agreed, When I was in music theory I was like "bruh this is just math and a foreign language in one" im assuming they meant the theory itself since rhythms are just math. dividing and subdivisions upon subdivisions so I totally get that. math is definitely involved but its not just math. GREAT VIDEO! Duchin seems like a lovely person and I love her shirt! as a musician I always used to think that the arts were the most creative and imaginative place to be but I love these wired videos because it goes to show just how artistic and creative many other things can be. the way she describes and loves math sounds like the passion and imagination and creation that goes into music. its great

This was really well explained, it’s always lovely when someone can talk about a topic in simple enough terms that you walk away feeling like you understood.

I would watch so many videos like this, she’s amazing.

I've got completely lost every time they got the chalkboard, but I really liked their explanations, and could see how in love with this they are

Hagoromo chalk is legendary, and anyone who prefers dry erase just hasn’t used that sweet sweet Japanese chalk yet

Props to the mathematician that gives interesting and insightful answers to many abysmal questions. Props to those who formulate interesting questions too!

They're so cool. Math genuinely makes me nervous and while I understand very little of this Moon is such a compelling person.

15:20 DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE omg Moon Duchin you made me so happy when you mentioned Noether. I have been studying a lot of regular rings and rings which are essentially of finite type over a field lately (also DVR's, which iirc, under some conditions at least, a Noetherian valuation ring is a DVR, since you have valuation ideals (I don't remember what the conditions are off the top of my head) ) so this made me really happy.

This is a great idea for a series, really well executed, and you guys get great people to do it, Professor Moon is awesome

WIRED + Prof. Moon = 100thEPISODEMASTERPIECE 🤩 The elegant and passionate way Moon speaks about such a complicated specialty topic is astounding and yet I don’t feel patronised in the least! Thank you for the best collaboration on UKposts!🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

Couldn't understand a thing but really cool how you present it with so much passion!

omg MOON! how did i not see this!! she is an amazing professor!! an absolute legend! one of the best math classes i've ever taken

I have a question for Dr. Moon Duchin : is maths artificial or natural ? Or to be more specific, does maths existe only in the minds of human race or does it existe already, and mathematicians are only trying to discover it, like physicists trying to learn about the universe?

Lmao she’s such a topologist. Also a great speaker

I could listen to them all day long about math. They got a really nice, calming voice.

I HAATTTEEE math and have since I was in elementary school (in my late 20s now) but Prof. Moon seems like they’d make it fun, I actually enjoyed this and it sparked an interest and an understanding of math I didn’t think possible for me. I would love to hear more! Great video!

My math teachers have always been boring or harsh so I appreciate this casual and calm way about approaching the topic

This was fantastic! I'd love to see Dr. Duchin come back for another round, Wired!

I took linear algebra recently and you really don’t get why seemingly useless things like imaginary numbers are incredibly important until you have to think about matrices. Wish there was a more intuitive way to express these concepts to kids, but math really is very abstract. Also: a little sad that she didn’t choose Euler for the sexiest equation, but that’s alright. Minsky looks very cool.

such a good explanation of everything. i think, for all subjects but for maths in particular, its so important to have someone who is able to explain things at a level others will understand. maths teachers are probably some of the 'smartest' people in the world and i think its sometimes hard for them to remember that not everyone is as good at it as they are, and so can explain things in a way that maybe they'd understand but not for students. definitely a very important and impressive skill, thank you moon!

She expresses things so clearly! Awesome video!

i didnt think id make it to the end of this but the person answering was so awesome I kept watching. Good editing too

My favorite person who had a hand in math was archimedes because he invented a device called the archimedes screw which we still use for irrigation and sewage treatment plants today, and he is also credited with creating statistics

Math had always been kinda hard for me, especially calculus. Then this one year, after I had to redo my year at high school, there was this teacher who was really good at explaining things and why I do things in order to get certain results, that opened my eyes and made me fall in love with math instantly. Graduated with a 9.43(Dutch grading system) which was two hundredth short to finish with a perfect 10. I had an average of 4.3(5.5 is the very minimum you have to get to pass) the year I had to redo.

Please have her back, she was super interesting

It is so cool to see some this excited possessing such a DEEP knowledge and passion for math.

I'd LOVE a part 2 of math support!

Yeah I could’ve told you Moon was a mathematician immediately without ever hearing a word of math in this video. The vibes are so mathematician-y. Also apparently my analysis professor, Alex Eskin, was Moon’s doctoral advisor, which is neat. Facts that everyone in math loves chalkboards and hagoromo

This math professor is so cool

Love this lady, love how she explains things and also love her voice.

I am not a math major, but I have an affinity towards math( means I am attracted towards anything math related). Loved the content, she explained the concepts really well in layman terms. Looking forward to more videos like this.

Thank you for the great explanations! I've never understood math or had someone that could explain in a way that made sense. Thank you.

did anything in this make sense to me? no. did i still watch the whole thing? yes.

As a math major, I enjoyed this video so much! And she explained it humorously for people to understand better

I was always stressed over math in school, but then I got a couple of professors that actually knew how to teach and I really enjoyed math!

Anybody who can glibly talk math off the cuff like that awes me. Thanks. I’ll watch this several more times.

I would have loved math so much better if I had a teacher like her. She is so entertaining and also has a great sense of humour!

I fell out of Mathematics to pursue a degree in Animation, and even though I can't imagine myself using the former as a way to currently make a living, I still love and enjoy seeing and watching math-related videos and discussions. Thank you for this!

I loved the way she answered. I have forwarded to my students and others who keep asking me why to learn math why to learn physics and etc.

Did I understand even half of what she was saying? No. But did I enjoy watching this and hearing her speak so passionately about it? Yes! 10/10 bring her back again!

Great to see someone so passionate & articulate talk about their field.

As a math enthusiast, I loved her saying, 'Thaat exactly equation, youll need... probably never'

If I had a teacher like her back in school, I would’ve loved math. I admire people who are just so insanely smart and can do this complex math with ease. It’s always been an envy of mine. This professor is awesome, I’m glad you shared her on here!

I'm so mad! If I had someone in my life who explained math concepts like Prof. Duchin I wouldn't have been nearly as miserable. The whole part about mathematicians multiplying shapes made me really curious. I had no idea math in general had all this space for exploring and curiosity, I always thought of it (only) as a way to explain what already is and a secret list of rules or language for the stuff most ppl don't have to worry about. Well, I'm glad the good Prof exists and is helping more ppl even if it's too late for me 😅👵🏾

So fascinating, I hope you guys do a chemistry version next!

She seems like such an awesome teacher!! And her name is Moon! How cool 🌙💖

*What a brilliant person!* I had so much fun watching this! 😊🙌📚

One aspect that would have greatly helped me, with learning Math, as a kid; if somebody would have given it context. We learned it 'because subject / we do'. Understanding that it is essentially an agreed language, for solving problems would have given it a lot more sense, to me. Like many languages, there are often many ways to say the same thing.