We are back with an episode on what makes mathematical problems interesting. In the studio with us, for this impossible topic, are Serte Donderwinkel and Steffen Müller: together we explore what we find interesting in mathematical problems, how beauty affects our taste, and how the way we present the problems influences the interest around them.

As usual, the episode touches upon a great variety of themes, don't miss it!

Episode links:

• Serte Donderwinkel's ⁠homepage⁠
• Steffen Müller's ⁠homepage⁠
• We met Anna in Season 1 Episode 8
• We met Jaap Top in ⁠Season 1 Episode 5⁠
• The Joy of Why - What makes for good mathematics?
• Freeman Dyson - Birds and Frogs

This was probably the episode with the largest amount of preliminary reading in the history of this podcast. The theme has been widely discussed and it is very interesting to see the various different points of views, with their differences and commonalities. We leave our reading list here for posterity:

• Terence Tao - What is good mathematics?
• John Baez - Why mathematics is boring
• Tim Gowers - The two cultures of mathematics
• Jeremy Avigad - Varieties of Mathematical Understanding
• Eugene Wigner - The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, see also the corresponding Wikipedia page
• Gizem Karaali - Doing Math in Jest: Reflections on Useless Math, the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics, and the Ethical Obligations of Mathematicians

If you liked this episode, please spread the voice sharing it with your friends or on your social media.

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Produced by Marcello Seri and Anna de Bruijn

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Illustrations by Henrieke Krijgsheld

The podcast soundtrack is derived from the royalty free track Starving by OctoSound and used in agreement with pixabay license https://pixabay.com/music/funk-starving-170377

We are grateful to the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Groningen for allowing us to use their equipment for this recording.