Podcast Episode

Life-Changing Math

The Art of Mathematics·Carol Jacoby·30 August 2026·17 min

About this episode

Ted Dintersmith, author of Aftermath: The Life-Changing Math that Schools Won't Teach You, argues that much of what we learn in math can be outsourced to machines. That frees people to understand the mathematical ideas that underlie much of modern life. An example is estimation, such as political polls. Understanding the various metrics that fill the news requires creativity coupled with logic. Learning to ask the right questions is more important than, say, learning to do closed-form integrals.