Maths for Kids / Maths is Not Boring: The Kids Maths Podcast

What is the Collatz conjecture?

Have you ever heard of a math puzzle that acts like a wild weather storm? In 1937, a mathematician named Lothar Collatz invented a simple number machine with just two rul

What is Zeno's paradox?

Have you ever tried to walk across a room, but realized you have to go halfway first? And then half of that remaining distance? And half of that? Welcome to one of the mo

What was the first times table?

Have you ever wondered who invented times tables? Or why three times four is exactly the same as four times three? It's time to discover the quiet magic of multiplic

Platonic Solids for Kids: Why There Are Only Five Perfect Dice

The story of the Platonic solids for kids: the five perfect shapes studied by Theaetetus and Plato in ancient Athens, and how Euclid proved around 300 BCE there can never

Averages for Kids: Why No One Is Average in Every Way

The story of averages for kids: how around 1950 Gilbert Daniels measured 4,063 United States Air Force pilots and found that not one was average in every way. • Why cock

Binary for Kids: How Computers Count With Only 1s and 0s

The story of binary for kids: how Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote out a way of counting with only 0 and 1 in 1679, long before computers. • How to count one, two, three

Triangles for Kids: Why the Strongest Shape Has Three Sides

The story of triangles for kids: why a triangle will not squash flat when a square does, and how Gustave Eiffel built his tower in Paris from triangles in 1889. • What e

Googol for Kids: What a Googol Is and Who Named It

The story of the googol for kids: how nine-year-old Milton Sirotta named the number one followed by a hundred zeros for his uncle, mathematician Edward Kasner, around 192

Fractions for Kids: How the Ancient Egyptians Shared Bread

The story of fractions for kids: how the Egyptian scribe Ahmes wrote down problems about sharing loaves of bread fairly about 3,500 years ago, in the scroll now called th

Tessellation for Kids: How Tiles Cover a Floor With No Gaps

The story of tessellation for kids: shapes that cover a floor with no gaps, and how David Smith from Bridlington in Yorkshire found a tile in 2022 whose pattern never rep

The Equals Sign for Kids: Who Invented It and What It Means

The story of the equals sign for kids: how Welsh doctor Robert Recorde drew two parallel lines in his 1557 book The Whetstone of Witte. • Why Recorde chose two lines of

The Law of Large Numbers for Kids: Why Coin Tosses Even Out

The story of the law of large numbers for kids: how John Kerrich tossed a coin 10,000 times during the Second World War, and how Jacob Bernoulli explained the result in a

Negative Numbers for Kids: How Numbers Go Below Zero

The story of negative numbers for kids: numbers below zero, from Chinese counting rods about 2,000 years ago to Brahmagupta's rules in India in 628 CE. • How Chines

Fractals for Kids: Why the Coastline of Britain Never Ends

The story of fractals for kids: why the coast of Britain gets longer the shorter your ruler, and how Benoit Mandelbrot asked the coastline question in 1967. • How Lewis

Place Value for Kids: Why We Count in Tens

The story of place value for kids: why ten fingers mean most of the world counts in tens, and how the system we use today grew up in India. • How the Babylonians counted

The Fourth Dimension for Kids: How to Picture a 4D Shape

The story of Flatland and the fourth dimension for kids: Edwin Abbott Abbott's 1884 book about a square who lives in a flat world and meets a sphere. • What a spher

The Pigeonhole Principle for Kids: Why Two Pigeons Must Share

The story of the pigeonhole principle for kids: why two people in London must have the same number of hairs on their heads, and how Peter Dirichlet set out the rule in 18

The Monty Hall Problem for Kids: Why Switching Doors Wins

The story of the Monty Hall problem for kids: three doors, one car and two goats, and how Marilyn vos Savant explained in 1990 why switching wins twice as often. • Why y

The Four Colour Theorem for Kids: Why Maps Need Four Colours

The story of the Four Colour Theorem for kids: how student Francis Guthrie noticed in 1852 that four colours are enough for any map, and how it took until 1976 to prove i

The Seven Bridges of Königsberg for Kids: How Euler Solved It

The story of the seven bridges of Königsberg for kids: the Sunday walk nobody could finish, and how Leonhard Euler showed why in 1735 by drawing the first network. • How