Podcasting about: Math Mutation podcast

In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical podcasts from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the podcast and asking them about what they do.

We spoke to maths podcaster Erik Seligman about his self-published podcast Math Mutation.

Podcast title: Math Mutation Website: mathmutation.com Links: Apple – RSS Average episode length: 5 minutes Recommended episode: 258 – Memory or Knot

Tell us about your podcast.

It’s about interesting, fun, or weird math (or math-adjacent) tidbits that can be explained in 5 minutes or so. It’s for people of any age curious about expanding their minds with math-related knowledge, or with insights math can provide in other areas.

I release about 1 episode per month. It’s a simple format, just me chatting with the audience about the topic. For the first couple of years I tried to do it weekly, but couldn’t keep up that pace…

What’s special about your podcast?

This one is not concerned with homework help or repeating stuff you heard in school – I focus on interesting ideas on the boundary of mathematics that you likely haven’t heard elsewhere.

Which episodes would you recommend for someone wanting to listen?

Some of my recent favourites, as well as 258 – Memory or Knot mentioned above, include 257 – Turning Things Sideways In Time, 254 – How To Annoy Your Cat and 252 – A Mathematician Translating Pushkin.

Any plans for the future?

To continue podcasting! Highlights of the first 200 episodes are now available in a book (Math Mutation Classics, from Apress/Springer).  If I make it to episode 400, maybe I’ll publish another volume!

Also, I’m not getting any younger… maybe if I retire from my day job in a few years, I’ll start making episodes more frequently again.