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The Hidden Geometry of Absolutely Everything

Jordan Ellenberg

62 mins watch time

Posted June 2021

Science

If you’re like most people, geometry is a dimly-remembered exercise, handed down from the ancients, that you gladly left behind in school. It seemed to be a tortuous way of proving some fact about triangles that was obvious to you in the first place. But that tiny part of geometry has as much to do with he fast-moving modern discipline as conjugating a verb has to do with a great novel. How should a democracy choose its representatives? How can you stop a pandemic from sweeping the world? How do computers learn to play chess? The answers to all these questions can be found in geometry.