How to Discover Your Humanity... Through Math? (with Francis Su)

How to Be a Better Human
How to Discover Your Humanity... Through Math? (with Francis Su) (Transcript)
July 25, 2022

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[00:00:00] Chris Duffy:
You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about math. And before you skip this episode, because you're saying to yourself, I'm not a math person. Listen, that is exactly what I would've said too. I was an English major. Math has always seemed like something that other people do, but surely, surely not me.

Until I read a book by today's guest: Francis Su. And that is when I realized that there's a lot more to this subject than I had ever realized. It's kind of like how sometimes when I tell people I'm a comedian, they go, “Oh, I could never do that. I am not funny. I could never tell a joke.” But everyone has some sort of sense of humor, right?

And, and Francis convinced me that we all have some inherent mathematical sense too. So how do we break the stereotypes around who math is for? And how do we stop seeing math as a test of whether we're good at adding things up, but instead as an amazing way to understand and enhance our humanity? Well, here is what today's guest renowned mathematician and author Francis Su has to say about that.

[00:01:04] Francis Su (recording):
The usual way people think about math is something you do to compute a tip at a restaurant, right? It's mechanical. It's often something that just we do because we don't have a calculator handy. And I, I think that's a very impoverished view of what it means to do math. I mean, I like to say anything a calculator can do isn't math, because math is, is actually more about thinking.

It's more about the virtues that are built by engaging and understanding. Math is more about aspects of character that you build, like persistence and problem solving, that I think will carry with you no matter what profession you go into or whatever you do in life.

[00:01:49] Chris Duffy:
That's Francis Su, author of Mathematics for Human Flourishing, and he's here to talk to us about how math can help us build the virtues that will make us all better. Stay with us. We'll return after this quick break.

[MUSIC/AD BREAK]
[00:02:09] Chris Duffy:
Okay, we are back. Thanks for sticking with us.

[00:02:10] Francis Su:
Hi, I'm Francis Su, and I am a mathematics professor at Harvey Mudd College and a former president of the Mathematical Association of America.

[00:02:21] Chris Duffy:
How did you first discover that you liked math? Because I know in, from reading your book, that at certain points you were actually kind of actively discouraged from pursuing math by teachers who were, I'll say ungenerously not good teachers.

[00:02:35] Francis Su:
Yeah. I, I had parents who were very, I think good at exposing me to interesting ideas and questions and nurtured my interest by giving me puzzles and books to read, things like that. I come back to an experience I had when one of my parents' friends came over and, and asked me to add the numbers from one to a hundred and asked me if I could figure that out on the spot.

and I'm like, no, You know, I, of course, I don’t know. Of course I’m a little kid, I can't, you know, I can't add those things up that quickly. And one of the things that I think blew my mind was when this friend said, actually, let me show you a way of thinking about this. And he said, “Well, if you think about the numbers as arrayed along the line, and you pair up the numbers from the outside in, 100 and 1 add up to 101. 99 and 2 add up to 101. 98 and 3 add up to the same thing. You realize that there are basically 50 pairs of things add up to a 101 and 50 times 101 is. 5050.” Like you could almost do that in your head, right? And, and that was, to me, mind-blowing.

[00:03:48] Francis Su:
It was like, whoa, actually, because of a pattern, this thing that seemed very hard, suddenly opens up and becomes something very easy, simple. And more than that, there's a beautiful idea behind it. And I, I think, you know, experiences like that one helped me to see that math is actually something about thinking.

And it's something where you get this aha moment. Often, part of what I try to do in the book is frame what the feeling of doing math well, feels like. It feels like a lot of things that we do in other areas of our lives. And that's part of the excitement that draws people to do math.

[00:04:24] Chris Duffy:
Tell me about the beautiful idea behind the ability to, to make those pairs and, and come up with the answer there.

[00:04:30] Francis Su:
Yeah, well, one beautiful idea is that there's symmetry, right? It's kind of like the same symmetry you experience in the human body, where you have a left hand and a right hand, and everything over here on the left pairs, up with everything on the right. Now, it's not perfect symmetry, right? Like my face isn't perfectly symmetrical. That's also part of what makes us beautiful and unique.

And the same thing happens in math, right? Like you might witness a pattern that has some symmetry. It's not a perfect symmetry, but that symmetry gives you a guide. For how to think about whatever it is you're thinking about. Maybe it helps you do something in a, in a better way or more efficient way. Maybe it helps you also pay attention to the unique aspects of what breaks the symmetry in the thing that you're looking at.

[00:05:15] Chris Duffy:
You gave a really beautiful speech about the lesson of grace in teaching. And you also turned that into a blog post. You talked about the, the kindness of a graduate advisor and how that shaped your career. Can you tell us that story or, or maybe just a, a version of that story?

[00:05:29] Francis Su:
Growing up, uh, being labeled as good at math sort of made me feel like part of my identity was being good at math. And so getting to grad school, which was, you know, I went to the PhD program at Harvard. You meet some of the most talented people in the world.

And that was maybe the first time that I experienced this feeling of not being up to snuff, not being good enough. Maybe not having the same background as many of my peers. Hitting a wall was, uh, I think hard, but also having other people now mark me as somehow not good enough or not capable, I think that was a, a new experience for me as well.

[00:06:08] Francis Su:
That was maybe the first time that, that I experienced that kind of situation where people, you know, sort of write you off in some sense. And we do that a lot in math and in math education. And part of the argument I wanna make is no, actually everybody's a math person because everybody's a human person.

And if we pay attention to what makes us human. It helps us to think a little bit more, uh, broadly about what it means to do mathematics and to do it, to do it well. Getting back to this story of, of graduate school… when I thought about quitting and, you know, I wrestled with this question, like, “Why am I actually doing math, right? Is it, is it for the, the prestige? Or is it because I actually love it?” Those two things had become conflated. And I wrestled very seriously with the idea of quitting graduate school.

And I almost did when another professor actually said to me, “You're quitting? Why, why don't you try working with me?” And so that was for me a moment where I experienced grace? Grace is like a, a word that I think is, is often used to describe a situation where people give you something that you didn't deserve. Right? But I, I like to say in this situation, like, I, I didn't earn his favor in the sense that people were already writing me off as maybe not able to finish my PhD program, but here was somebody who said “I don't care. I'm gonna take you, right? You're you, you work with me.”

[00:07:40] Chris Duffy:
You know, I've heard you talk and, and write about before, about how we can get so focused in education on results and, you know, grades, test scores that we forget that there's a human component too, to this relationship, and that building the, the relationship between a teacher and a student to, to have there be real empathy and care, and, and like you said, grace, that that is as important, if not more important than the actual results of the exams or the grades at the end of the day.

[00:08:08] Francis Su:
That’s right. We're, we're such an achievement-oriented, um, culture, achievement-oriented society. But when we think about it, the most meaningful experiences that we have actually happen in moments between people where they could care less about your resume. They could care less about what you've done. The people who have the most impact on our lives and who touch us are often grace givers.

And that's part of, you know, my own journey in thinking about mathematics. Like what is my purpose of getting mathematics? Is it so that I could show people that I'm actually more elite than other other people? Right? That’s an achievement-oriented mindset. Or should I think about math as actually something that serves the greater good, and I can contribute to it by being part of it as a mathematician, by helping others see the wonder and beauty of mathematics, helping open up people to human experiences that they deserve to have. And I think all of us deserve to see the beauty of mathematics, whatever ways makes sense to us.

[00:09:12] Chris Duffy:
Let's get deeper into that then. So, we’ve talked a couple of times about how math overlaps with what it means to be human or how math can help us to be more human. How so? How do you convince someone of that?

[00:09:24] Francis Su:
One of the ways I, I do that is by first thinking about what are the human desires that we have? So for instance, Chris, if I ask you like, what are, what are some of the hobbies that you engage in?

[00:09:34] Chris Duffy:
Mmhm. Well, I, I am a love comedy. I love to make people laugh.

[00:09:38] Francis Su:
So let me, let me dig deeper. What need are you, you meeting either in yourself or other people by, by making people laugh?

[00:09:46] Chris Duffy:
It’s probably a combination of connection, uh, and joy, right? You, when I tell a joke in someone laughs I know that we see that thing in the same way, and then there's just the pure joy of, of laughter and, and release.

[00:09:58] Francis Su:
Yeah. And some of that joy comes from a surprise, right? So one aspect…I love jokes because you know, there's a punchline and you’re… it, it’s often some unexpected twist on a way that you, you were thinking about whatever it is you're talking about. And then suddenly, boom, there's a funny pun. And you're like, “Oh, actually that was, ah, I wasn't expecting that.”

[00:10:23] Chris Duffy:
There's a certain type of joke where they're like, “Oh, I wasn't expecting that.” That's like a, a medium, I'd say that's a six on a joke scale, right? The “Huh?” Okay. Yeah.

[00:10:31] Francis Su:
Yeah. That's right. Maybe, maybe that's not the top of the list. I'll tell you my favorite joke. It is my favorite joke and it's actually a clean joke so I can tell it on the air. It’s “Where does a king keep his armies?”

[00:10:42] Chris Duffy:
I think I know, but I'm gonna let you say it anyway.

[00:10:44] Francis Su:
In his sleeve-ies.

[00:10:47] Chris Duffy:
Yep. There you go. Okay.

[00:10:48] Francis Su:
That was a six, right? Probably.

[00:10:50] Chris Duffy:
Yeah. That’s a six for me. I, you know, it’s—I love the passion. So I'll give you six for the passion and deliveries.

[00:10:55] Francis Su:
Yeah. Now. Okay. So that, believe it or not, is actually a similar experience to the feeling of grasping a beautiful idea in mathematics, right? It's like the unexpected twist where you're like, “Oh, I can add up a string of numbers by pairing them up. Not only do I appreciate the joke, but I can go now tell a very similar joke and get a lot of mileage out of it.” So this is what a great math education ought to build in us. It should build in us a hunger for a punchline, right? A hunger for a, a story well told, uh, and it's often sadly, uh, missing for many people's mathematical experiences.

[00:11:41] Chris Duffy:
Often the experience that people have in math is on like timed math tests or on worksheets and homework, where you're supposed to get things done in a certain amount of time.

And something I was surprised to hear in the book and, and in learning more about mathematics, is that kind of the things that we evaluate people on when we are teaching math, especially in, in elementary school and high school, those are really not the skills that mathematicians praise at all, right?

Mathematicians don't care how long it takes you to do something. In fact, most great math theorems have been proven over years and or, or decades or sometimes centuries. And It takes instead creativity and collaboration, and kind of a sense of humor in the sense of like being able to see things in a new way and think about them differently than everyone else sees them. Those are the things that mathematicians value. And yet we often think about it as like rote knowledge or memorization.

[00:12:32] Francis Su:
They're also the things that employers value, right? So if you think a little bit about what happens when you get hired, if you have some kind of mathematical training, people don't hire you because you can factor a quadratic, right?

They hire you because you have persistence in problem-solving. You're willing to sit with a hard problem for a long time and see a project through. They hire you because you have good skills to collaborate over something technical, right?

[00:13:00] Chris Duffy:
Yeah.

[00:13:01] Francis Su:
So why isn't that part of our math experiences or the way, you know, the way the things we value in math education? It should be, we should do more of helping students interact well over mathematical experiences. Being able to share ideas without shooting each other down or making each other feel like misfits.

[00:13:18] Chris Duffy:
So let's imagine now, you know, someone's listening to this and, and they're convinced. They’re sold, right? Like, okay, great. I get it. I see math can help me to be a human and help me to build the skills of perseverance and creativity, all those things.

What would you recommend that they do? How can, how can a person, who's not a professional mathematician or not a current student? How can they start to put these things into practice in their daily lives?

[00:13:42] Francis Su:
I think one of the things we often, uh, forget is that math is sort of mathematical thinking, understanding. This is part of many experiences that we have, and it's not just over numbers.

So I guess the first thing I would say is for each person to cultivate their mathematical affections, to start opening their eyes, to, to seeing patterns everywhere and being enchanted by those patterns, right? Actually taking a breath and stopping and listening to the patterns that you are enjoying when you're listening to piece of music.

[00:04:17] Francis Su:
But you know, if you're a parent or a coach of some kind, I think another thing to think about is the fact that you don't have to be an expert to be a good mathematical teacher or a good mathematical coach, right, for your kid. Right, like many people think, uh, you know, “I can't teach this stuff because I don't know the answers.”

Well, you know what, actually? It's more about asking the right questions. It's more about being able to guide your kid to learn, to think into reason, right? We don't have to know the answers to all the, the questions our kids are gonna get on our homework. We just have to be willing to sit and help them reason through it, help them think more effectively.

[00:14:57] Chris Duffy:
So you have a, a young child.

[00:15:00] Francis Su:
I do.

[00:15:01] Chris Duffy:
So how are you doing this personally? How are you instilling a passion for math?

[00:15:04] Francis Su:
Yeah, well, he's only, uh, 20 months now. And so at this age, you know, it's not about counting or numbers or anything like that. It's just about having him appreciate shapes, right? Like Nathaniel is his name.

He, he’s making connections actually and seeing patterns where I'm not seeing them. Right like, you know, his, his first word was helicopter. Although he doesn't say helicopter, he says, da-da-da. Right, he’s like pointing, pointing up and he is mimicking the sound, right?

[00:15:34] Chris Duffy:
Very Los, Los Angeles first word. That's a clear child who was brought, who was born in Los Angeles, right? Nonstop.

[00:15:39] Francis Su:
Dadada. Well, the other day we were at a, in a, in a store and he saw a ceiling fan and he pointed to it and he goes, dadada. And I’m like, “Oh, okay. That’s, that's not a helicopter.” But he, he made the connection to the ceiling fan and helicopter were alike. Not because of the sound, but because of the way they looked, right? The spinning blades. And I'm like, “Oh, that's a pattern, right? Like that’s, that's abstraction, right?” Kids are, are learning to abstract when they're making associations.

[00:16:16] Chris Duffy:
So what about for someone who has a kid that's slightly older? So say someone who's actually, you know, starting to be in school? How would you recommend that they instill a passion for mathematics? What, what can they do? What's a practical thing?

[00:16:27] Francis Su:
Just encourage math talk in everything that you're doing. You know, if you're having your kid go to the store and you're having them think through consequences of what things that they, you know, were gonna buy today and how many we're gonna get. I, I would say beyond counting, I think patterns are, are more important, right?

So for instance, if you're asking your kid to, to take five things and add two more things to it, often a kid will start from there and you know, they'll, they'll have to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and then 6, 7, right? They'll have to start over, but pretty early you can have them see that five plus two is actually the same as two by five, just by swapping the positions of your two hands, right?

And that's a very early picture of what we often call the commutative property of addition. The fact that the order of addition doesn't matter, right? That's an idea. That's probably a more important thing for kids to begin to see than just memorizing how to add numbers.

[00:17:29] Chris Duffy:
Okay. We are gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, we will go beyond the numbers to see how understanding math can actually open us up to new ways of looking at truth, identity, and even justice. Stick with us.

[MUSIC BREAK]

[00:17:47] Chris Duffy:
We’re back with author and professor Francis Su. So recently there, there have been news reports of, of math textbooks being banned from schools in certain places. You know, I think some people like me hear that, and it almost seems laughable because like, it's, it's math. It, it's not political. But I think that after reading your book, I came away with the idea, a very compelling idea that, that in fact, like math is political, that math is about human interactions and it's not just this cold, sterile world of logic.

And that, for example, the types of questions we ask in a math textbook, they have real world implications and, and you've been very vocal about thinking that we need to, to change those and make those more inclusive. How has your personal identity played into your experience with math?

[00:18:33] Francis Su:
Certainly one identity that I have is as an Asian, uh, Asian-American, and one of the, the, uh, unearned benefits of being Asian is that people often give you benefit of the doubt. They believe you can do math because maybe they believe you, you have some magic ability or gene that you were born with. And I, I don't subscribe to that idea at all, but certainly benefited from it. Another identity that I have is as an Asian embedded in an often, a very white context in mathematics departments.

And there's some evidence that shows that people think of Asians, not as having leadership potential. We often call that in the Asian community the “bamboo ceiling” that you aren't viewed as a leader, if you're Asian.

[00:19:18] Chris Duffy:
And you talk about how in, in the book, you, you were the president of the Mathematical Association of America, and you were the first mathematician of color to be the president of that association.

[00:19:28] Francis Su:
That's right. That's right. Yeah. And in fact, a blogger, Angry Asian Man, I think after that happened, tweeted out: “Finally an Asian who's good at math!” Right? Like he's making the very sarcastic remark that this has sort of been a long time coming. Even for a group of people that you think is, has relative advantages in mathematics.

[00:19:48] Chris Duffy:
Both take away the credit for the actual humanity of what you've done in your accomplishments and personality.

[00:19:54] Francis Su:
So this is actually gets back to, I think, a point that is very important to make, which is that mathematics, what you think mathematics is for is gonna strongly determine how you relate to it, how other people relate to it. So if you think mathematics is about achievement, Then you're gonna think about math as being something that is competitive.

You're gonna think about a good job going to one person means a good job is not going to another, right? That’s gonna lead to a certain kind of attitude around who should have access to mathematics and who, who shouldn't. Now, if you think that mathematics is actually more of a public good, something that everybody can appreciate, something that everybody can grow in, and good for one doesn't necessarily mean bad fo another, then I think we're gonna have a different, completely different view of mathematics. That it, it's something that should be more like a, a human right, to be able to experience beauty and joy and wonder. We should all be able to, to do that. Just like we should all be able to experience good music or fine art or the thrill of a football game.

[00:20:58] Chris Duffy:
You have a chapter in your book about justice. How is math connected to the pursuit of justice? ‘Cause obviously there's a piece of justice that we, we were just talking about, which is around who is encouraged to do math and who's allowed to do math. But then math itself can also play a role in, in a broader kind of social justice and, and also just the concept of justice. So can you talk about that a little bit?

[00:21:20] Francis Su:
You know, when we talk about how math and justice relate, I mean one way as you, as you mentioned, is some of the human aspects around who has access to math and who doesn't, but another is using math to actually model situations that are unjust and maybe prescribe ways of changing the system.

You know, so for instance, a, a good example is some of the conversations around gerrymandering. How do you build a partition, a state into districts that are somehow allow for fair representation? Well, what does that mean? You have to define what you mean by fair. And so math actually gives us a way of quantifying what it means for a, a set of, of districts to be overtly partisan or not. And mathematicians as well as other people, political scientists need to be better about communicating the value of what math can offer in those situations and, and how it can help us maybe get beyond some of the, the typical opinions that, that people throw around related to gerrymandering.

[00:22:18] Chris Duffy:
Throughout your book, one of the threads is your correspondence with your friend, Christopher Jackson, who’s a fellow mathematician who has started studying math while he's been incarcerated. And he started writing to you for advice on math, and then you two developed this correspondence and, and his letters are part of your book. So I wonder how does math and your relationship with Christopher… how does that change how you think about justice?

[00:22:40] Francis Su:
A lot of times people hear about my relationship with Christopher and they think, oh, okay, this is a story about how much math I taught Chris. But in, in many ways it's a story about how much Chris has caused me to think differently about my own views on, on mathematics. You know, after seeing how Chris who basically didn't finish high school, landed in prison at a, you know, as a teenager, now is incarcerated for some small crimes for, for 32 years and discovered a love for math in prison… Here is somebody who is likely not gonna be able to, to use math in a career studying calculus.

What does he see in this stuff? And of course I know what he sees in it. He sees beauty. He sees a possibility of, of having a, a freeing mathematical experience, right? Being able to explore things with his mind, even though his body is, is incarcerated. Somebody who is, is entered with very different experiences than I did, the same unifying feeling about mathematics.

[00:23:50] Francis Su:
It shouldn't be a surprise, but certainly it caused me to think more deeply. How does math contribute to human flourishing? Here is a picture of somebody who is flourishing, even though he's in a very difficult position. He's now reading some advanced math textbooks and even beyond what you read in the book, he's tutoring other inmates to get their GEDs.

This is a, a picture of somebody who I think I could rightfully say was unjustly given a very long sentence. And he's still flourishing even though his situation is, isn’t great. He talks about making a legal argument for appealing his, uh, sentence, right? And how mathematics gave him a way of being able to, to think and reason and to make an argument for his appeal. These are some of the intangible benefits, I like to call them virtues, that are built by, by having a great experience in mathematics.

[00:24:44] Chris Duffy:
You also talk in the book about how in 1984, in the book with the, the fascist authoritarian government, right? One of the ultimate things that they say is that they're gonna tell you that two plus two does not equal four. It equals five.

And that, that is the kind of ultimate of the controlling of the mind is that they were able to force you to believe something that is verifiably false. Obviously, when I first read 1984, that felt very distant and, uh, hypothetical. And now I think for many of us, we live in a world where it feels like it's, there, there is a, a disturbing closeness to the idea of being told that things are not real, which are real.

And I think that it's compelling to think about how math is a force against disinformation and authoritarianism because it doesn't allow for that kind of distortion to be true that you can't make two plus two five.

[00:25:38] Francis Su:
Ten years ago if we had had a conversation around truth, I think, um, it would be very easy for people to say, to dismiss the notion of a universal truth, right? Like the idea that there is truth. Often in academic circles, people would talk about the many complexities of truth, and truth is complex. That, that's part of what makes it hard to talk about, right? Like people have many different perspectives on truth, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some underlying truth that’s there.

And we're seeing now today, a situation where some of the same people who 10 years ago would have denied the existence of objective truth are now saying, “Wait a minute, like you can't just blatantly lie like that.” Like, you know, like they're hearing lots of disinformation things that are blatantly clearly not true.

[00:26:26] Francis Su:
And now they find themselves having to defend the idea that there is actually truth. You know, these things are complicated because truth is messy and complicated. And sometimes people might argue that math sometimes unnecessarily strips away, a lot of things that are important in order to get at some, something essential.

But one of the things that, that I think math does, uh, help you see is that you can have some confidence in knowing things, and that confidence carries over to other areas of your life. And it, you know, enables you to say, “okay, yes, there are some things we can know.” We need to be able to stand up and, and defend truth, even if it's messy and complicated.

[00:27:11] Chris Duffy:
Hmm. What are three things that a person who's listening right now can do to get more of the benefits of math into their lives?

[00:27:20] Francis Su:
The first thing I would say is that people need to stop talking down about their own mathematical abilities and start talking up ways in which they are thinking creatively. You know, one writer said that that literature's equipment for living.

And if that's the case, I would like to say, I often like to say, math is equipment for thinking, right? In much the same way that when you read great literature, you understand different ways of, of living and different ways of being you're being, you know, uh, asked to think about situations that maybe you've never put yourself in, mathematics often helps you to envision different ways of approaching a problem. Thinking creatively, strategically, being persistent in how you solve the problem, engaging your ability to quantify, to define, to strategize. You know, these are all mathematical ways of being. And so maybe the first thing I would say is to, to begin to broaden our conception of what it means to do math as a set of virtues, that we are already engaging in.

[00:28:32] Francis Su:
A second thing that I would suggest is, is each person find a way to visit a museum, metaphorically speaking, of mathematics. Actually, there is some museum of mathematics in New York City, if you happen to be New York City. But one of the, the ways you can do that is to begin to appreciate math by reading popular books, uh, about mathematics and its value.

These don't have to be highly technical books. They could be books that just encourage an appreciation of mathematical ideas. Eugenia Cheng is one who, uh, has written many books about the value of, of mathematical thinking: How to Bake Pie. You know, she compares that to cooking very effectively. Steven Strogatz is another example of a, a writer who's done a, a lot to popularize mathematical thinking. Jordan Ellenberg.

[00:29:19] Francis Su:
And a third way that each person can be a better human through mathematics is I guess just maybe comes down to the kinds of conversations that people have around math. You can be an agent for changing people's impressions of mathematics. And, you know, this will benefit you, uh, as well as benefit the people around you.

Because the, I think the more you start to vocalize that math is a set of, of ways of being, a set of virtues that, that have that we're all engaging in every day, I think the more that you'll begin to, to see math differently as well, and see it everywhere in your life.

[00:29:57] Chris Duffy:
And what is something that has, whether it's a book, a movie, a piece of music, an idea, what's something that has made you a better human?

[00:30:05] Francis Su:
Well, one thing that's made me a better human is being in relationships and friendships with people who are willing to, to have hard conversations with me, to challenge me in various ways, while still being a grace giver and, and showing me that they, uh, love me in spite of my, all my, uh, faults.

[00:30:26] Chris Duffy:
Well Francis, Su, thank you so much for being on the show. It has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. I really appreciate you making the time.

[00:30:32] Francis Su:
Thank you. It's been fun. Thank you for having me.

[00:30:38] Chris Duffy:
That is it for today's episode. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and this has been How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to our guest Francis Su. His book is called Mathematics for Human Flourishing.

On the TED side, this show is brought to you by Anna Phelan and Sammy Case, who are flourishing mathematically and otherwise.

From Transmitter Audio, Wilson Sayre, Leyla Doss, Farrah Desgranges, and Dan O'Donnell are mathematically seeking truth.

And from PRX productions, How to Be a Better Human is produced by Jocelyn Gonzales and Sandra Lopez-Monsalve who are both working on finding beauty through equations of their own. They’re working on that right now.

Thanks to you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please share this episode with a friend and leave us a review! Have a great week!