The Letter That Changed Mathematics

Summary

The Rest Is Science — “The Letter That Changed Mathematics”

Hosts: Professor Hannah Fry, Michael Stevens (Vsauce)
Date: December 4, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Rest Is Science, hosts Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the story behind a seemingly nonsensical letter that transformed the world of mathematics—Srinivasa Ramanujan’s first letter to Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy. Interwoven with personal anecdotes and lively banter, the discussion delves into themes of mathematical genius, unlikely discoveries, and the enduring impact of outsider thinkers. The episode also features Q&A on scientific curiosities, a celebration of favorite elements, and reflections on the culture of mathematics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origin Story: Ramanujan’s Letter (02:37 – 08:26)

• Ramanujan’s Background

  • Introduced as a self-taught Indian mathematician, likened to the character in Good Will Hunting ([03:12]).
  • Worked in isolation with only a high school mathematics textbook.

• Arrival of the Letter

  • Hardy, at Cambridge, regularly receives outlandish mathematical letters.
  • Finds Ramanujan’s letter filled with pages of bizarre notation and claims—no proofs, messy presentation.
  • Initially dismisses it as “a load of gibberish” ([03:38]), throws it away, then reconsiders after recalling a few intriguing formulas.

• The Turning Point

  • Hardy and Littlewood retrieve the letter from the bin to investigate further.
  • Realize that within the mess are mathematical statements known only to experts and some beyond the existing knowledge.
  • Quote ([04:49], Fry, paraphrasing Hardy):
    "Either this person is crazy, either this is a letter that has come in from a madman, or, as is more likely, this has come in from a genius."
  • Decide the only explanation is genius.

2. The Infamous Sum and Mathematical Madness (05:50 – 06:21)

• The Viral Equation:

  • Ramanujan’s claim: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... to infinity = –1/12.
  • Fry reflects:
    "Can you imagine getting a letter from someone saying if you add 1, 2, 3, 4 all the way up to infinity equals minus 1 over 12, you would just dismiss it out of hand, surely." ([05:51])

• Controversy and Utility

  • Michael points out this imagination and confidence would make him look twice ([06:21]).
  • Fry notes:
    "He knew it sounded crazy, and yet it turns out it’s not crazy. It’s absolutely correct. And not only that, but it turns out to be phenomenally useful in the field of string theory." ([09:21])

3. Ramanujan in Cambridge (06:35 – 08:26; 10:35 – 13:15)

• Extraordinary Natural Ability

  • Despite minimal training, Ramanujan advanced number theory beyond the best mathematicians in Cambridge ([06:35]–[07:40]).

• Personal Impact

  • Fry shares her awe at viewing the original letter in Cambridge’s archives ([08:26]–[08:35]).

• Tragic Personal Details

  • Difficulties adapting to Cambridge: vegetarian diet, wartime rationing, health troubles.

  • Passed away young, tuberculosis ([10:35]).

  • Hardy describes his encounter with Ramanujan as “the most romantic encounter of his life” ([11:27]).

  • Famous anecdote: Hardy visits Ramanujan in the hospital, comments on the taxi number 1729; Ramanujan instantly identifies it as uniquely interesting ([11:27]–[13:15]).

    • Quote ([12:44]):
      "1729 isn’t uninteresting at all. It’s the smallest number that can be comprised of two cube numbers added together in two different ways…” — Ramanujan

4. Genius vs. Collaboration; The Myth of the Lone Genius (13:25 – 14:43)

• Reflection:

  • Fry:
    "The idea of there being these geniuses who walk the earth is…really magnetic…Also…I think it’s sort of problematic, because almost all science and maths…is done by big teams of people who just are normal people who work really hard." ([13:25])
  • Michael:
    "The great man theory of history…it forgets the fact that…there needed to be doctors to help Ramanujan…literally the messengers who would send the correspondences..." ([13:54])

• Connection to the Everyday Pursuit

  • Not everyone is Usain Bolt—using sports as a metaphor for the value in everyday engagement ([14:18]).

5. Mathematical Prodigies and the Fields Medal (14:52 – 16:38)

• Youthfulness in Discovery
  • Noting mathematicians’ productivity often peaks in their 20s ([14:52]).
  • Brief rundown of Fields Medal eligibility (“Nobel of Mathematics,” under 40, every 4 years) ([15:31]).
  • Only one woman has ever won the Fields Medal ([15:31]).

6. Cambridge Treasures: Principia and Ramanujan’s Letters (16:38 – 18:59)

• Viewing History

  • Fry describes holding Newton’s annotated Principia Mathematica on a pillow, marveling at Newton’s messy handwriting and doodles ([16:50]–[18:04]).

• The Royal Society Quirk

  • Tradition: scientists sign a historic book; Newton’s signature is visible, but the name after his is smudged out from centuries of fingers pointing ([18:09]).

7. Outsider Geniuses: Grigori Perelman & Modern Parallels (19:06 – 21:45)

• Perelman’s Story

  • Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman solves the Poincaré Conjecture, one of the Millennium Problems, as a total outsider ([19:06]).

  • Posts proof online; initially met with skepticism, but it holds up.

  • Declines the $1 million prize and honors to avoid distraction from mathematics ([20:39]).

    • Quote ([20:40], Fry):
      "To go to Spain would mean one day traveling, one day to collect the prize, one day to return home, and that would be three days when he wouldn’t be able to do mathematics. So he turned it down. Wow."

• Reflection on Fame and Wealth

  • Perelman’s choice to remain reclusive sparks a discussion on personal values over recognition ([21:01]–[21:45]).

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Listener Q&A and Memorable Dialogue

The Science of Sneezing (25:49 – 28:26)

• Question: Why do I sneeze when I first have a mint or a piece of chewing gum?
  • Fry: The trigeminal nerve, which controls facial sensation and muscle movement, can be triggered by mint (or light), sometimes causing sneezing instead of its intended response ([26:05]).
  • Michael: Some people have "leaky nerves," leading to crossed signals from bright light, etc. ([27:00]).
  • Fry jokes about the sneeze-as-pleasure Reddit subculture ([28:08]).

Favorite and Least Favorite Chemical Elements (28:34 – 33:27)

• Hosts' Favorites:
  • Michael: Sulfur (family connection and unique qualities); least favorite—hard to decide, possible nomination: dangerous elements ([28:40]).
  • Fry: At first considers argon ("the ultimate loner"), but relents after recounting seeing it used in neutrino detection at CERN; gold emerges as a second favorite for its rich history ([30:26]–[33:27]).
  • Amusing fact: Liquid argon is cheaper than Coca-Cola by the litre ([31:38]).
  • Famous gold anecdote: Nobel medal dissolved in aqua regia to hide it from Nazis during WWII ([32:36]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Mathematical Madness:
  “If I tell you this, you will at once point out to me the lunatic asylum as my goal. Like, he knew it sounded crazy, and yet it turns out it’s not crazy.” — Hannah Fry on Ramanujan ([09:21])

• On Discovery and Recognition:
  “He just wants to do his own thing…hence people stalking him and putting photos of him on the Internet.” — Fry on Perelman ([21:03])

• On Elemental Preferences:
  “If you want to send in gifts to either me or Michael, I’ll take as much gold as you want to give me, and Michael will take sulfur…” — Fry ([34:17])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ramanujan’s Letter and Reception: 02:37 – 06:35
• Mathematical Content and Meaning: 06:35 – 10:35
• Personal Anecdotes & Cambridge Archive: 07:40 – 08:35, 16:38 – 18:59
• Mathematicians, Genius, and Collaboration: 13:25 – 14:43
• Fields Medal & Prodigy Culture: 15:31 – 16:38
• Grigori Perelman’s Story: 19:06 – 21:45
• Sneezing & Trigeminal Nerve: 25:49 – 28:26
• Favorite Elements: 28:34 – 33:27

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Tone and Style Notes

Throughout, the hosts maintain their signature blend of wit, intellectual curiosity, and humility—easily shifting from the awe-inspiring (“the most romantic encounter of his life”) to self-deprecating (“I’m way too old, Michael”) to irreverent humor (on sneezing fetishes and Reddit rabbit holes). The show’s relaxed, conversational tone makes deep scientific ideas approachable, while the anecdotes ground abstract mathematical legends in relatable human drama.

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Summary prepared for listeners wanting a rich, detailed overview without spoilers or distractions. Advertisements, intro/outro, and sponsor content have been excluded for clarity.

Transcript

[Hannah Fry]

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[Michael]

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Welcome to the Rest is Science. This is Field Notes, a kind of expedition diary where Hannah and I track the discoveries, curiosities, riddles and questions that have excited our minds recently. Now, what have you got for me today, Hannah?

[Hannah Fry]

Okay, today I want to Talk to you about, and I don't think this is an exaggeration, one of the most important pieces of paper in the history of mathematics. Oh, good. It's a big deal. I got to go and see it. I haven't got it with me today because I think it's locked behind about 15 doors under continual armed guard. I'm joking, but I'm going to get to what it is in a moment and why it ends up being so important. But the, the first thing I want to ask you about is have you heard of a guy called Ramanujan?

[Michael]

Yes. Mathematician, Indian.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, absolutely. So actually, he is the, the character that Good Will Hunting is based on, right? I mean, Good Will Hunting is like this modern version of the story, but essentially the kind of the essence of that story is there's truth to it. We're talking just after 19, okay? And at the time, there are these great titans of mathematics who are at Trinity College in Cambridge. One of them is called Hardy and the other is his, his kind of co collaborator, a guy called Littlewood. And as lots of mathematicians do even to this day, they get all of these letters from people coming in and saying, oh, I've, like, discovered something absolutely extraordinary. I've. I've come up with a new formula for infinity, et cetera. Anyway, one day, Hardy opens these letters and he sees this letter that's come through in the post and it's a total load of absolute gibberish, right? Like, complete load of nonsense. The notation is all over the place. It's like pages and pages of formula. He's like, this is absolute junk. So he immediately just throws it in the bin and leaves it. And then he leaves. He kind of goes off for lunch and goes for a walk. And then later that evening, he finds himself sitting with his longtime collaborator, Littlewood. And he's like, I just can't get this thing out of my head because there was a couple of things in it. Even though the, like, notation of it was absolute nonsense, there were like a couple of bits in it that sort of. I feel like I've been struggling, struggling to understand myself for a number of years. So him and Littlewood go back into the, to the wastepaper basket and they get this letter out of the bin and they start to go through it and line by line. I mean, it is full of the absolute biggest load of junk in a lot of ways. In terms of the notation, in terms of there are no proofs anywhere. There's no, it's, there's. It's not Rigorous at all. It's. It's like a mess. However, contained within it are these, like, little ideas, these little, like, mathematical secrets, some of which Hardy knew that the rest of the world didn't know, and some of which were even beyond what Hardy himself thought that was. Was possible. And him and Littlehood were, like, looking at this and being like, okay, you know what? Either this person is crazy. Either this is a letter that has come in from a madman, or, as is more likely, this has come in from a genius. And they decided that on the balance of probability that if someone was a madman to send this letter, they wouldn't possibly have the imagination to come up with something quite so crazy. And so the only possible explanation was that this must be the real deal. And I should tell you, some of the, like, crazy things that appear in this letter are that if you add up 1 plus 2, plus 3, plus 4, plus 5, all the way to infinity, you get minus 1 over 12.

[Michael]

Is that where that comes from?

[Hannah Fry]

That's where that comes. Well, yes, that's one of the places that comes from. Yes, absolutely. I mean, can you imagine? I like trying to. I get letters like this now, right? So I am now a professor at Cambridge University. I get letters like this all the time. I open them and think they are nonsense. And there's a little bit of me that's like, oh, no, hang on a second. Maybe I could be missing out on an actual genius here. Maybe I could be a real genius. But can you imagine getting a letter from someone saying if you add 1, 2, 3, 4 all the way up to infinity equals minus 1 over 12, you would just dismiss it out of hand, surely.

[Michael]

Yeah. You would think it was a joke and you'd be concerned for the person. But you're right to have the imagination to come up with that, but then also the confidence to send it to leading mathematicians would make me take a closer look.

[Hannah Fry]

Right, absolutely. So that's exactly what Hardy does. He finds a way to contact the person who wrote in the letter, a person called Ramanujan, and he organizes for him to come over from India and become a resident in Trinity College in Cambridge. And when he does so, he realizes that the person in front of him who is untrained, this kind of rough diamond, as it were, has the most extraordinary natural ability of basically any mathematician who has ever walked this earth. Not only that, with his only training being this. This textbook that's used for high school students, right? Like, there's no advanced mathematical ideas in it at all. He had managed by himself to advance the field of number theory further than the best, most well funded minds across Cambridge and the rest of the right. On his own he had managed to do things that had, that had evaded other people. So the thing that I got to see when I was first talking to Cambridge about moving over there as a professor, they organized this day for me where.

I, like, got to go and see all of the really exciting things around Cambridge, right? Got to go meet the Vice Chancellor, got to go and, you know, see the, like, fancy halls and stuff. And there was one day, one afternoon, there was one bit where we got to go into the library and dig out their treasures. And they had the original Newton copy of Principia Mathematica, the text textbook that he wrote his handwritten annotations in it. Absolutely amazing. That's sort of the gem of their collection that everyone gets really excited about. And of course I found that exciting. But then they were like, oh, and there's some stuff by some other mathematicians that we've dug out over there in the corner. We went over, had no idea that this is what we were going to find, but there was a folder with the original letter, the one that had been thrown in the bin.

By Hardy and the subsequent follow ups. And I, I basically, I've never been more excited by anything in my entire life.

[Michael]

What kind of mathematics was it? What. What was being argued or shown?

[Hannah Fry]

So this is, it's number theory, essentially. So you are looking at different ways that you can partition series numbers. So I have sent over a couple of pictures that I took on the day.

[Michael]

Oh, for today, from Hannah Fry.

[Hannah Fry]

There you go.

[Michael]

Oh, wow, okay.

[Hannah Fry]

Right. So for starters, look how nice his handwriting is. Absolutely true.

[Michael]

That's the first thing I was going to say. This is not a madman, this is an artist. It's so readable.

[Hannah Fry]

It's so readable.

[Michael]

Dear Sir, I am very much qualified on perusing your letter of the 8th of February. I mean, I'm not good at reading cursive, but I love this.

[Hannah Fry]

This is readable, right? But this is someone who notices actually how crazy he sounds because there's a section here where it says, I told him that the sum of an infinite number of terms of the series, 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 plus plus plus equals minus 1 over 12 under my theory. If I tell you this, you will at once point out to me the lunatic asylum as my goal. Like, he knew it sounded crazy, he knew it sounded crazy, and yet it turns out it's not crazy. It's Absolutely correct. And not only that, but it turns out to be phenomenally useful in the field of string theory. It's an actual result that actually gets used by actual physicists.

[Michael]

Yeah. And Numberphile has a fantastic video on it. It sounds like a joke, and yet there are ways of looking at the sum of all the integers and you go, well, how can it not be negative 1 12th.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah. That proof from. From. From Numberphile is. I think it's pretty controversial. I think that's probably fair to say.

[Michael]

Well, it's controversial, but it really forces you to say, well, what is mathematics and what are we doing here? Because there are different kinds of intuitions and different sorts of, you know, behaviors and things to focus on that really can make something like this true.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, absolutely. The other thing about this Ramanujan story is that I should add is that actually the winter in Cambridge, it really didn't suit him, Right. This is also 1914. 1915. So right at the very beginning of the First World War, he was vegetarian and it was almost impossible for him to get the nourishment that he needed while there were rations and so on in place. There was nowhere in Cambridge that sold vegetarian food around that time, I believe. But he really didn't do very well. And around three years later, he ended up passing away. He contracted tuberculosis and passed away. And there's this really beautiful story about Hardy, who I have to tell you, right, Hardy is like. He's sort of the most upright of people, right? If you imagine a really traditional English gentleman.

It'S. That's Hardy all over. I mean, this is like. This is a man who had five things that he was most proud of in the world. And number five was that he didn't have any children. He used to boast about how happy he was that none of his maths was any use whatsoever to anybody, which is a bit of a shame because it ended up being the foundation of modern cryptography. But he's like this very, very upright man, loves cricket and mathematics and nothing else, not interested in another single thing. But he described his encounter with Ramanujan as the most romantic encounter of his life, or the only romantic encounter of his life. Oh, yeah. Which is quite sad, really, in a lot of ways, but he really thought that he was. This man was absolutely extraordinary, like, had been sent by God. And when Ramanujan was in the hospital, when he was extremely sick and. And about to pass away, Hardy got a taxi down. This is. He was in Putney, in a hospital in Putney. So Hardy got a Taxi all the way over to go and see him and sit with his. And he didn't know what to say, Right. He was rubbish at small talk, sort of like a very awkward guy. And he sat there and said, oh, the number of the taxi that I got here was 1729, like an extremely unremarkable number. And 1729 has now become a sort of inside joke for mathematicians because Ramanujan, without even pausing, this is a man who is on his deathbed, right. Like one of the most gifted mathematicians to have ever lived, immediately responds, 1729 isn't uninteresting at all. It's the smallest number that can be comprised of two cube numbers added together in two different ways, which, I mean, I don't know about you, Michael, but that would take me about an afternoon to work that out.

[Michael]

Yeah. And on my deathbed, I'll probably say something like.

Nothing. That becomes a mathematical meme for the centuries.

[Hannah Fry]

No, absolutely not. It's just a really lovely story. And I mean, I think it's sort of like. I think the kind of. The idea of there being these geniuses who walk the earth is. There's something so appealing about it. There's something like really magnetic about it. I also think it's sort of problematic because almost all science and maths and advancing of humanity is not done by, you know, the absolute, like one in a squillions. It's done by big teams of people who just are normal people who work really hard.

[Michael]

Right, yeah. Right, Yeah. I mean, the great man theory of history and culture and discovery. It forgets the fact that, like, there needed to be doctors to help Ramanujan. There needed to be, like, literally the messengers who would send the correspondences back and forth so that these mathematical conversations could happen. Like, you need everything, everyone.

[Hannah Fry]

There's also, I think, this idea that, you know, not everyone is Usain Bolt, but that doesn't mean that you can't have extreme value in sort of going for a jog around your park on a. On a Sunday afternoon. You know, you sort of don't have to be a genius.

[Michael]

And we all stand on the shoulders of giants. For every Ramanujan, there's a high school math textbook that set him on that path.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, absolutely. You do get these things popping up, though, in math sometimes. You do get people coming from nowhere with, like, no formal training, no connection.

[Michael]

First of all, I'll say that not only do they just kind of of pop up, they're often quite young.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah.

[Michael]

I'm sure you've heard A lot about this, like, sweet spot for mathematicians and their productivity, and it's like, in the early 20s. What are your thoughts on that? Do you feel like you've got some mathematical discovery that you're gonna. You're gonna stumble upon in the next couple of decades and you're gonna throw the average off?

[Hannah Fry]

Oh, no, I'm way too old, Michael.

[Michael]

Way too old.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, way too old. Also. I'm just enjoying my time spent with you far too much to be thinking deeply about. About mathematical truths and reality.

[Michael]

Oh, so now you're. For keeping you from changing the world mathematically. I'll take it. I'll take that responsibility.

[Hannah Fry]

Okay. That's good. Yeah, it is. It does seem to be our young person's game. I mean, actually, they always used to say it was a young man's game, and I think sort of real emphasis there. Only one. One woman has ever won the Fields Medal. This is a bit like the Nobel Prize for mathematics, except it's way harder because you can only receive it if you're under 40, and they only give out every four years.

[Michael]

Wow.

[Hannah Fry]

But, yeah, only one woman ever has won it, so. Yeah.

[Michael]

Oh, my gosh. I've got two months left to win that.

[Hannah Fry]

Uh. Oh, Get. Get. Come on, let's do this.

[Michael]

Do you have to be under 40, or does your discovery just have to have been made before you were 40?

[Hannah Fry]

No, you received the medal before you're 40.

[Michael]

When's this next ceremony?

[Hannah Fry]

2026. That's the next Fields Medal.

[Michael]

Ah, but what month?

[Hannah Fry]

When's your birthday?

[Michael]

January 23rd. It's really soon in the year, but it only happens every four years. 2030. 2034, 2038. Let's see, my daughter is going to be. She won't be 40 until 2059.

[Hannah Fry]

She's got time.

[Michael]

She's got a chance. All right, so I'm looking at these photos. I still have them up on my computer, and there's one where you're actually standing next to a bound book, a hardcover bound book. And is that what contains these letters?

[Hannah Fry]

No. So that is Newton's original copy of Principia Mathematica.

[Michael]

Oh, no kidding. I love that it's on a pillow. Like, just needs to be tucked in.

[Hannah Fry]

It's so precious. The thing is, is that even though it's on a pillow, if you, like, flick through these, there's one point clearly where it's got mouldy. So it's like these pages are just covered in black mold.

[Michael]

I love that. You know, Richard Feynman Once said something like, if you think about something for a really long time, you can write down all of your thoughts in a book and then put it in on a shelf in a library full of basically what happens when people think about things. And it was just such a humbling reminder that like, the mole doesn't care what's on the page.

[Hannah Fry]

No, no, absolutely not. Or whose hand had like turned the pages. There are some nice things in there though. There's like a couple of bits where Newton has done a couple of little doodles. So there's like, I mean, he's got much messier handwriting than Ramanujan. That's what I will say. But there's, there's like a few little, little graphs that he's drawn there, like little tangents and stuff. There's a bit where he's sort of correcting the print, being like, no, no, no, no, I don't like this at all. I want to change it completely. I mean, my Latin's not great, so I'm assuming that's what it says. But there's one bit which I quite like.

[Michael]

Little Newton doodle, a Newtonian emoji.

[Hannah Fry]

You know, in the Royal Society where they elect fellows, like really great people from science and mathematics, they elect them as fellows. And it was the institution, it's been sort of the longest running scientific institution in kind of continuous existence in the entire world. Been going since the 1600s. Newton was like a very prominent early president of this place. Anyway, when you are elected as a fellow, which is very, very hard to do, you get one black ball and you're out. When you get elected, you get to sign your name in this original book, which has everybody in it all the way back to the 1600s. And the thing that's really nice is that obviously Newton's signature is in there, but the person underneath Newton's signature is completely rubbed out. Because for centuries people have flicked backwards, put their finger on the page and gone, oh, look, it's Newton.

[Michael]

And they've pointed at Newton's smudging the name below him. Oh, I love that.

[Hannah Fry]

Erased, literally erased from history. This does happen every now and then. Someone pops up from nowhere who is sort of outside of the like usual institutions, but has done something really extraordinary. This happened a few years ago. There was a guy called Grigori Perlman. I don't know if you've come across this guy.

[Michael]

Yes, I've seen like photos on Reddit of him, like taken candidly from his back while he's waiting at an intersection and they're like, we found him, and it's just such a mystery.

[Hannah Fry]

He is so fascinating. Okay, so in the year 2000, the clay maths Institute, they. They decided that they would write down the seven most important unsolved problems in mathematics, right? Like, the biggest mysteries. And they were like, we'll give a million dollars to anyone who could solve one of these. And all of them almost have stood unsolved for a quarter of a century, but from nowhere. A few years ago, this proof landed on the Internet by Grigori Perlman, a Russian mathematician. Mathematician. I mean, I'm sort of saying that, but, like, he wasn't associated with anywhere. He solved this, like, very important theorem called the Poincare conjecture. And people initially were, like, very skeptical. Where's this guy come from? You know, you don't just sort of. I mean, you may as well, like, he may as well put it up on Twitter, you know, like, you don't expect sort of a random Twitter poster to have solved it, but people very carefully went through and checked, and it was absolutely correct. Like, this whole thing was totally, totally spot on. And so. So, you know, people were like, well done. You have all of these prizes. Have the medal, have the. Have the.

[Michael]

The million dollars.

[Hannah Fry]

Right? But the thing is, the million dollar prize, it was a ceremony that was going to be held in Spain, and Grigori Perman, he replied that to go to Spain would mean one day traveling, one day to collect the prize, one day to return home, and that would be three days when he wouldn't be able to do mathematics. So he turned it down. Wow. Says something, doesn't it?

[Michael]

Yeah, yeah.

[Hannah Fry]

But he hides from everybody. He's like, he doesn't want to give talks. He doesn't want to be invited to things. He just wants to do his own thing. So. Yeah. Hence people stalking him and putting photos.

[Michael]

Of him on the Internet, living his best life alone. Well, we don't know if he's alone. He might have, like, a bunch of friends.

[Hannah Fry]

So he did live with his mom in an apartment in Moscow when the prize was suggested.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Hannah Fry]

Which is like, you know, actually, I think a million dollars in Moscow is, like, it's enough money to. To, like, be noticed, but not enough money to protect yourself. So I think that might be one of the reasons.

[Michael]

Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Or maybe he just doesn't want his mom to know he's a nerd.

[Hannah Fry]

I think it might have leaked out on the side.

[Michael]

She's like, what's that letter you received? And he's like, oh, junk mail. I gotta go.

Lift some weights.

[Hannah Fry]

Is that what you were like in your teenage years, Michael?

[Michael]

No, no, I was very proud to be as nerdy as possible.

[Hannah Fry]

Me too. Absolutely. Should we go to a break?

[Michael]

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[Hannah Fry]

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[Michael]

I'm safe.

[Hannah Fry]

That's not how statistics works.

[Michael]

Shoot.

[Hannah Fry]

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[Hannah Fry]

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[Michael]

Welcome back from the break. We are refueled and we are ready for some questions.

[Hannah Fry]

You survived. Congratulations.

[Michael]

We've got people who desperately need answers. For example, Becky asks, why do I sneeze when I first have a mint or a piece of chewing gum?

[Hannah Fry]

Well, okay, first things first, Becky, I think you need a lozenge for that sore throat.

[Michael]

That's what I was thinking. It's ridiculous. Becky, like, chewing gum is not, is.

[Hannah Fry]

Not the thing that you should be consuming right now. Okay, Basically, there are this, these nerves in your face, right? There's one called the trigeminal nerve. Like this. It's a monster. It's like an absolute beast sitting behind your face. And it's responsible for all of the sensation that you get and also the movement of your main muscles, your sort of chewing muscles. And that nerve essentially holds the power to hit the sneeze button, right? So that's the nerve that gets triggered if like a little bit of dust or a microbe or something ends up in your nose and you're like, okay, need to eject this immediately. Let's sneeze. But what can happen is when you, when you eat something like mint or for some people, when you look at a bright light, right? This is having, it's sort of like there's, there's that nerve. It gets a slight sensation that it gets confused by and it just hits the eject button instead of, instead of being like, it's cool. Don't worry about it. It's a bit of mint.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Hannah Fry]

The looking at bright light one is because the optic nerve runs really close to the Other nerve. And, like, the sort of insulation between the two of them can be a bit dodgy. And so you can get sort of a mixed message, quite literally like a faulty wiring of, like, looking at a bright light. And this nerve being like, something sneeze.

[Michael]

How cool. Yeah. The optic nerve, any nerve near the trigeminal nerve. Overstimulated, it can leak in and then it. Yeah, the trigeminal nerve says there's something that needs to get out of here.

[Hannah Fry]

Sneeze, have a sneezing fit. It'd be quite bad if you worked in a mint factory, wouldn't it?

[Michael]

Well, yeah, I've never had that kind of effect. I don't sneeze when I see bright, bright lights. But I've heard people talk about it, and I've been like, wow, you've got leaky nerves, dude.

[Hannah Fry]

You are miswired. Yeah. The only way, actually, that I can make myself sneeze is. Which everyone can do. Right. Is to get something really small. Don't do this. But like a feather and, like, tickle the inside of your nose. That will. That will work if you ever want to sneeze. Some people quite like sneezing, I think, don't they?

[Michael]

Oh, yeah. Some people really like it. Like, it's their. It's their bag, baby.

[Hannah Fry]

What, like. Like, like in a kinky way?

[Michael]

Yeah, because it. It represents, like, a moment where you lose control.

[Hannah Fry]

Oh.

[Michael]

It's surrendering yourself to the sneeze.

[Hannah Fry]

Wow. You better believe I'm going to be searching some of the dark corners of Reddit later.

[Michael]

Oh, yeah, I can show you my friends in the forums. No, but that's a good time to move on to Harry B.

[Hannah Fry]

It probably is. Wait, let me ask you this one. Let me ask you this one. What is your favorite and least favorite element and why?

[Michael]

My favorite and least favorite element. My favorite element is sulfur because my father was a sulfur engineer. He was a chemical engineer who worked especially in sulfur recovery from refineries. They've got a lot of sulfur that they don't need. And he loved sulfur. He had jars of sulfur around the house as decoration, and he always wanted to get a tattoo of a sulfur molecule. My least favorite. I don't know, it seems so mean to be all, like, judgmental about just a way matter can be arranged, I guess. Should I go with something that's dangerous? Let me think.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah. Gorn, what's the most dangerous?

[Michael]

You know, like, the most dangerous. I'd say, like, some enriched plutonium would be really bad.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And yet Plutonium, I think, can also do a lot of good when used in the right way.

[Hannah Fry]

What about, like, is it thallium? That's, like, really poisonous. Some of them are very bad for you.

[Michael]

Yeah. But they've gotta have redeeming qualities. There's a whole part of the periodic table that's full of, like, the forgettable elements where their. Their properties are all like. Yeah. It's a silvery metal that is sometimes used in optics. And you look at its name, and the name is like, flaboobium. And you're like, oh, is that really an element? And you have to look it up and you're like, yep, it's got a Wikipedia page. Wow. I never hear about that. But I don't want to be mean to them either. Is there an overrated element? I sometimes think carbon gets talked about a lot.

[Hannah Fry]

It does. It's also. Don't know if you know this. This quite a big deal.

[Michael]

You're one of those carbon heads. I see, I see. Maybe it's just that I love sulfur too much. But what about you? What's your least and most favorite element?

[Hannah Fry]

You're right. Having a least favorite is really difficult. I was going to go for argon as my least favorite. Just because it's, like, boring, doesn't do anything.

[Michael]

It does so much. Ever heard of an incandescent light bulb?

[Hannah Fry]

I know, but then also I do. The other thing I was thinking about was because the thing about argon, it does react with anything, right? It's like it just happily runs around on its own. It's like the ultimate loner, basically. But the thing about argon is that actually they use it to detect neutrinos. So there was one point where I got to go to CERN and I just so happened to be there when they were building this, like, giant neutrino detector. You know, these. These sort of like particles that are. That are incredibly difficult to sense, that leave almost no discernible imprint on the world around them. But if you have a giant tank of liquid argon, then you can, like, slightly detect these little trails that are left by these neutrinos as they go through. Anyway, this tank, right, that they had was, like lined with gold on the inside. That was pretty cool. But the liquid argon that they had in it, I was like, that is. That's a. That's an absolute beast. How on earth did you get the funding for that? Liquid argon is apparently cheaper than Coca Cola by the litre.

[Michael]

No kidding. How cold is it?

[Hannah Fry]

I actually don't Know, we got a.

[Michael]

Question from Michael S. How cold is liquid argon?

[Hannah Fry]

How cold is liquid argon?

[Michael]

So I guess argon condensing temp that is negative 302 Fahrenheit, negative 185 Celsius.

[Hannah Fry]

Not that cold. I mean cold, but not, not like insane cold, basically.

[Michael]

The point is, it sounds like argon might be your favorite element.

[Hannah Fry]

I think it might be. You know, I was also, I was going to go for gold just because I think like actually.

I mean, it's a bit, it's a bit of an easy one, isn't it? A bit of an easy one?

[Michael]

No, no, no. Gold has a lot going for it. I think if you're gonna, if you're gonna say argon is bad for just hanging around and not reacting with stuff, how can you then say gold is great? Gold famously doesn't react with stuff. It's precious, it doesn't tarnish. The only thing that gets rid of it is aqua regia. Dissolves it at least.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah. Which is actually the famous story about the, the Nobel prize winner who. During the Second World War. Because when you get a Nobel Prize, it's like the medallion that they give you is literal gold, Right. Like actual full on gold. And they were concerned about the Nazis coming in and being like, give us that solid gold medallion you've got over there. And so he dissolved it. Right. He kind of put it into a solution.

[Michael]

Is it a solution or a colloid? I don't know.

[Hannah Fry]

It's a colloid. Yeah.

[Michael]

But the point is, you look at it, it's just a beaker of gross.

[Hannah Fry]

Stuff, reddish, just fluids. You've just got no idea what it is.

[Michael]

Great way to hide gold.

[Hannah Fry]

Great way to hide gold. Yeah. I think I'm going gold also. I just love the idea that it's sort of like created in the, you know, in like the collision of neutron stars and came. Came here on an asteroid, which is admittedly true for almost every heavy element, but.

[Michael]

Yeah, yeah. But you know, gold was probably also one of the first elements ever discovered since it can exist in its elemental form.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah. You can spot it in the rocks.

[Michael]

I think sulfur would have been really early because you also can just find sulfur nuggets, veins of sulfur, whereas carbon, oxygen. It's hard to like see those things if you're just a prehistoric person poking around.

[Hannah Fry]

Also, I think it's really entangled with human history. Right. Like we valued it from, from, from time immemorial. Like, you know, the first, the first idea of money was like that you would exchange change the snugger of gold. You know, even before coins were really a thing. So, okay, there you go, listeners of the Rest Is Science. If you want to send in gifts to either me or Michael, Michael, I'll take as much gold as you want to give me, and Michael will take.

[Michael]

Sulfur, I really will. But we'll be back next Thursday with another edition of Field Notes. And until then, keep your eyes open, your pencils sharp, and your minds a little bit wild.

[Hannah Fry]

And if you have anything you want to send us in, including alternative outros that we can use next week, then please do send them in the restis.

[Michael]

Scienceoalhanger.Com or join our newsletter by heading to restis.com science.

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[Hannah Fry]

Starting a.

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