The Maths of Getting Away: Routes, Queues & Google Maps

Podcast Show NotesWhat makes a route the best route? The shortest distance? The quickest journey? The cheapest option? Or simply whichever one Google tells you to take?In this AfterMaths Summer Special, Jon and Becky explore the maths of getting away — from Google Maps and traffic predictions to queues, theme parks and an 18th-century puzzle that helped create an entirely new area of mathematics.Along the way, they discuss the Seven Bridges of Königsberg, Euler's ingenious solution and what it can teach us about problem solving: representing problems, working systematically, spotting patterns, simplifying and knowing when there might not actually be a solution at all.Plus: why the other supermarket queue is always faster, whether you should ever switch queues, 99 smartphones causing a fake traffic jam in Berlin, and the deeply troubling emergence of people forming orderly queues at pub bars.It's maths. It's holidays. It's considerably more Euler than your average trip to Orlando.