

Marcus du Sautoy's "Brief History of Mathematics" (10 MP3 episodes) - petercooper
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/maths

======
JonnieCache
I can recommend BBC Radio 4's "Museum of Curiosity"

Its a humorous discussion programme where guests who range from comedians to
eminent scientists donate hypothetical exhibits to a virtual museum. It's both
amusing and informative, and it's great to see people with such honest passion
and excitement about matters intellectual and aesthetic.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/museumofcuriosity.shtml>

You can download the episodes at all the usual places. The same goes for most
of the BBC's radio output.

When you guys get the international iPlayer you're all really going to like
radio 4 :)

------
stratospark
Listened to this a while ago and thought it was pretty interesting. The
Bourbaki story was particularly cool.

Any recommendations for similar podcasts? I know of Radiolab, what else?

~~~
petercooper
Just sticking to the BBC because it's what I know best, _In Our Time_ is
another great radio show (and podcast) -
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/in-our-time/>

It's essentially a 40 minute discussion between the host and 3 leading
academics related to a particular scientific, historical or cultural topic. A
recent one was _Pseudorandom and Random Numbers_ , for example (also featuring
_du Sautoy_ ): <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x9xjb> .. others like
Imaginary Numbers, Logic, Logical Positivism, and The Physics of Time were
also illuminating.

I'm not sure how much of the BBC's stuff people outside of the UK can listen
to, but there are torrents of the back catalog floating about and I don't
believe they're being commercially sold anyway. They just go out on the radio
each week.

~~~
dazzawazza
+1 for In Our Time: The host Melvyn Bragg is a great radio host. He is from a
literary background and REALLY struggles with any maths topics but he throws
himself in and his struggles makes the listener feel at ease. This show draws
real experts to the studio as well so you get really interesting discussion.

Another lighter but still interesting podcast is The Infinite Monkey Cage with
Brian Cox and Robin Ince [1]. It's part comedy and part science, thought
provoking and a little lighter on the brain.

[1] <http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc>

------
samratjp
I love Marcus du Sautoy's programmes - he also did some BBC Horizons ones that
were particularly interesting - The Secret You was fun and Alan & Marcus Go
Forth and Multiply is pretty entertaining and insightful as well.

~~~
CallMeV
He also writes on mathematics, and presented a TV series on mathematics which
occasionally appears on BBC Four.

Currently I have, and am enjoying, his book _The Music of The Primes_.

Useful links in these discussions, by the way, including the link in the
original post. Thank you.

------
bilban
I recommend this series, nice short introductions to math topics.

