All Episodes

Xiaochang Li, "Divination Engines: Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, and the Making of Algorithmic Culture" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Richard Elwes, "Huge Numbers: A Story of Counting Ambitiously, from 4 1/2 to Fish 7" (Basic Books, 2026)

Drew M. Dalton, "The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism" (Northwestern UP, 2024)

Counter-Revolutionary Puzzles with Guillermo Badia

Antony Valentini, "Beyond the Quantum: A Quest for the Origin and Hidden Meaning of Quantum Mechanics" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Raffaele Danna, "The Craft of Indo-Arabic Numerals: How Practical Arithmetic Shaped Commerce and Mathematics in Western Europe, 1200–1600" (Harvard UP, 2026)

Antonio Padilla, "Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity" (FSG,2022)

Tom Griffiths, "The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind" (Henry Holt and Co., 2026)

Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, "The Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

Jeremiah Joven Joaquin and James Franklin eds., "The Necessities Underlying Reality: Connecting Philosophy of Mathematics, Ethics and Probability" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025)

Thomas Morel, "Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

Al Posamentier, "Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians" (Prometheus, 2020)

David Bressoud, "Calculus Reordered: A History of the Big Ideas" (Princeton UP, 2019)

Chris Dalla Riva, "Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Allen B. Downey, "Probably Overthinking It: How to Use Data to Answer Questions, Avoid Statistical Traps, and Make Better Decisions" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

Anthony Bonato, "Dots and Lines: Hidden Networks in Social Media, AI, and Nature" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025)

George Musser, "Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe" (Picador, 2024)

Noah Giansiracusa, "Robin Hood Math: Take Control of the Algorithms That Run Your Life" (Penguin, 2025)

Anil Ananthaswamy, "Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI" (Dutton, 2024)

Robyn Arianrhod, "Vector: A Surprising Story of Space, Time, and Mathematical Transformation" (U of Chicago Press, 2024)

Chris Bernhardt, "Beautiful Math: The Surprisingly Simple Ideas behind the Digital Revolution in How We Live, Work, and Communicate" (MIT Press, 2024)

Scientists Cooperate while Humanists Ruminate (EF, JP)

Grace Lindsay, "Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

Karenleigh A. Overmann, "The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East" (Gorgias Press, 2024)

Luci Pangrazio and Neil Selwyn, "Critical Data Literacies: Rethinking Data and Everyday Life" (MIT Press, 2023)

Michael Gavin, "Literary Mathematics: Quantitative Theory for Textual Studies" (Stanford UP, 2022)

Brian Clegg, "Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe" (MIT Press, 2021)

David J. Hand, "Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters" (Princeton UP, 2020)

Ann Johnson and Johannes Lenhard, "Cultures of Prediction: How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools" (MIT Press, 2024)

Paulina Rowinska, "Mapmatics: How We Navigate the World Through Numbers" (Pan Macmillan, 2024)

David S. Richeson, "Tales of Impossibility: The 2000-Year Quest to Solve the Mathematical Problems of Antiquity" (Princeton UP, 2019)

Thomas A. Garrity, "All the Math You Missed (But Need to Know for Graduate School)" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

Kevin Lambert, "Symbols and Things: Material Mathematics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

Ismar Volić, "Making Democracy Count: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation" (Princeton UP, 2024)

A Better Way to Buy Books

Barbara Sattler, "The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

Lawrence Goldman, "Victorians and Numbers: Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2022)

Milo Beckman, "Math Without Numbers" (Dutton, 2020)

The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Cannot Tell Us

Athene Donald, "Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Justin L. Bergner, "Solving the Price Is Right: How Mathematics Can Improve Your Decisions On and Off the Set of America's Celebrated Game Show" (Prometheus Books, 2023)

Shelly M. Jones, "Women Who Count: Honoring African American Women Mathematicians" (American Mathematical Society, 2019)

Jeffrey Carpenter and Andrea Robbett, "Game Theory and Behavior" (MIT Press, 2022)

James D. Stein, "Seduced by Mathematics: The Enduring Fascination of Mathematics" (World Scientific, 2022) Math

John Allen Paulos, "Who's Counting?: Uniting Numbers and Narratives with Stories from Pop Culture, Puzzles, Politics, and More" (Prometheus, 2022)

Alfred S. Posamentier, "The Secret Lives of Numbers: Numerals and Their Peculiarities in Mathematics and Beyond" (Prometheus Books, 2022)

Probability

Alexandr Draganov, "Mathematical Tools for Real-World Applications: A Gentle Introduction for Students and Practitioners" (MIT Press, 2022)

Andrew Fiss, "Performing Math: A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom" (Rutgers UP, 2020)

David Kaiser, "Well, Doc, You're In: Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe" (MIT Press, 2022)

John Stillwell, "The Story of Proof: Logic and the History of Mathematics" (Princeton UP, 2022)

Alberto Cairo, "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information" (Norton, 2019)

Karen Hunger Parshall, "The New Era in American Mathematics, 1920–1950" (Princeton UP, 2022)

Peter Winkler, "Mathematical Puzzles" (A K Peters, 2020)

Brian Cafarella, "Community College Mathematics: Past, Present, and Future" (CRC Press, 2022)

Joseph Mileti, "Modern Mathematical Logic" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

Ronald Meester and Klaas Slooten, "Probability and Forensic Evidence: Theory, Philosophy, and Applications" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

Andrew Witt, "Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture" (MIT Press, 2022)

Scott Gehlbach, "Formal Models of Domestic Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, "Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in LIfe" (Dey Street Books, 2022)

Robert-Jan Smits and Rachael Pells, "Plan S for Shock: Science. Shock. Solution. Speed." (Ubiquity Press, 2022)

Nikita Braguinski, "Mathematical Music: From Antiquity to Music AI" (Focal Press, 2022)

Mindy Capaldi, "Teaching Mathematics Through Games" (American Mathematical Society, 2021)

Dashun Wang and Albert-László Barabási, "The Science of Science" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

Hilary Glasman-Deal, "Science Research Writing For Native and Non-Native Speakers of English" (World Scientific Publishing Europe, 2020)

Thomas Haigh and Paul E. Ceruzzi, "A New History of Modern Computing" (MIT Press, 2021)

Scott Timcke, "Algorithms and the End of Politics: How Technology Shapes 21st-Century American Life" (Bristol UP, 2021)

N. J. Enfield, "Language Vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists" (MIT Press, 2022)

Kate Crawford, "The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence" (Yale UP, 2021)

Stephen B. Heard, "The Scientist’s Guide to Writing: How to Write More Easily and Effectively Throughout Your Scientific Career, 2nd ed." (Princeton UP, 2022)

Florian Jaton, "The Constitution of Algorithms: Ground-Truthing, Programming, Formulating" (MIT Press, 2021)

Sarah Brayne, "Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing" (Oxford UP, 2020)

Tony Veale, "Your Wit Is My Command: Building AIs with a Sense of Humor" (MIT Press, 2021)

Aubrey Clayton, "Bernoulli's Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science" (Columbia UP, 2021)

Brian Cafarella, "Breaking Barriers: Student Success in Community College Mathematics" (A K Peters, 2021)

Helga Nowotny, "In AI We Trust: Power, Illusion and Control of Predictive Algorithms" (Polity, 2021)

Thomas Huckle and Tobias Neckel, "Bits and Bugs: A Scientific and Historical Review of Software Failures in Computational Science" (SIAM, 2019)

David Sulzer, "Music, Math, and Mind: The Physics and Neuroscience of Music" (Columbia UP, 2021)

James Wynn and G. Mitchell Reyes, "Arguing with Numbers: The Intersections of Rhetoric and Mathematics" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2021)

Ian Stewart, “The Joy of Mathematics” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Vicky Neale, "Why Study Mathematics?" (London Publishing Partnership, 2020)

Brian Clegg, "Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe" (MIT Press, 2021)

Chris Bleakley, "Poems That Solve Puzzles: The History and Science of Algorithms" (Oxford UP, 2020)

Alfred S. Posamentier, "Math Tricks: The Surprising Wonders of Shapes and Numbers" (Prometheus Books, 2021)

Rachel Steinig and Rodi Steinig, "Math Renaissance: Growing Math Circles, Changing Classrooms, and Creating Sustainable Math Education" (Natural Math, 2018)

Satyan Devadoss and Matt Harvey, "Mage Merlin's Unsolved Mathematical Mysteries" (MIT Press, 2020)

Artur Ekert, “Cryptoreality” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Freeman Dyson, “Pushing the Boundaries” (Open Agenda, 2021)

James Ladyman and K. Wiesner, "What Is a Complex System?" (Yale UP, 2020)

James Robert Brown, “Plato’s Heaven: A User’s Guide” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Ellen Peters, "Innumeracy in the Wild: Misunderstanding and Misusing Numbers" (Oxford UP, 2020)

Dave Auckly, et al., "Inspiring Mathematics: Lessons from the Navajo Nation Math Circles" (AMS, 2019)

Jonas Peters and Nicolai Meinshausen, "The Raven's Hat: Fallen Pictures, Rising Sequences, and Other Mathematical Games" (MIT Press, 2021)

Eugenia Cheng, "x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender" (Basic Book, 2020)

J. Rosenhouse, "Games for Your Mind: The History and Future of Logic Puzzles" (Princeton UP, 2020)

Snezana Lawrence, "A New Year's Present from a Mathematician" (CRC Press, 2019)

James D. Stein, "The Fate of Schrodinger's Cat: Using Math and Computers to Explore the Counterintuitive" (World Scientific, 2020)

Anna Weltman, "Supermath: The Power of Numbers for Good and Evil" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)

Alfred S. Posamentier, "The Joy of Geometry" (Prometheus, 2020)