05/08/2015

Eugenia Cheng: How To Bake Pi

17:18 minutes

How can whipping up a hollandaise sauce help you understand number theory? Mathematician Eugenia Cheng says that “math, like recipes, has both ingredients and method.” In her new book, How to Bake Pi, Cheng cooks up digestible math lessons on everything from number theory to topology to category theory. Read an excerpt from the book here, and find out how to eat π pies here.

Segment Guests

Eugenia Cheng

Dr. Eugenia Cheng is Scientist in Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and author of several books, including The Art of Logic in an Illogical World (Basic Books, 2018) and Is Math Real?: How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics’ Deepest Truths (Basic Books, 2023).

Meet the Producer

About Alexa Lim

Alexa Lim was a senior producer for Science Friday. Her favorite stories involve space, sound, and strange animal discoveries.

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How Math is Like Baking: You Just Need a Recipe

An excerpt from "How to Bake Pi" by Eugenia Cheng.

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Kitchen Math: How To Eat π Pies

Methodically slice up four pies to reach the irrational number pi.

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