This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are joined by Professor Marcus du Sautoy. Marcus is Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford, author of multiple popular science and mathematics books and he is a regular contributor on television, radio and to both The Times and The Guardian. He is also passionate about public engagement on topics that include creativity and artificial intelligence.

0.00 Introduction

2.23 Where does your love of mathematics originate?

6.11 What is mathematics really about for you?

8.35 Can you explain what zeta functions are, and why symmetry and the function of groups is important to learn more about.

12.24 What did you draw from the moment that DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol?

16.12 What are your thoughts around the possibility that AI can be creative, so taking us down a path where consciousness may not be the thing that actually happens, but we might actually get something totally new that doesn’t exist in our minds or reckoning at the moment?

18.35 How do we prevent ourselves from having something that we don’t understand governing our lives?

20.44 In your book ‘What We Cannot Know’, you explored if there are questions that we may never have the answer to, and therefore our living with the unknown. Could you elaborate on that idea for us?

25.52 You’ve written about the conflict between physics and mathematics, and also your idea that mathematics exists outside of humans so it’s not a human construction and would exist without us. Could you elaborate on those two points?

33.13 Tell us about your latest book ‘Thinking Better’ where you search for short cuts, not just in mathematics but also other fields.

36.14 A lot of people think of maths as being hard. However, you can use maths, the concepts and frameworks without being an expert mathematician. Can you bring that to life for us?

43.09 Tell us about the work you’ve been doing to bring Douglas Hofstadter’s life story to the Barbican in London.

48.28 You’ve said that we can’t fully know something when we’re stuck in a system whether consciously or unconsciously. What is the leadership lesson or opportunity that we can take from that?

53.06 When was the last time you had a real ‘aha’ moment, and what’s the biggest challenge that you are working on at the moment?

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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

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The Art and Science of Pattern Recognition with Marcus du Sautoy 55:28 Share

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The Art and Science of Pattern Recognition with Marcus du Sautoy