Ideas

Mathematics is everywhere: a common refrain from high school math teachers. But did you ever think math could be linked to literature? And not just in works from the literary greats of the past but for example Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. The relationship between math and literature are fundamentally creative, says Sarah Hart, a mathematician and author who speaks to Nahlah Ayed about how these two things that seem so polar opposite are deeply intertwined.

Sarah Hart's book is called Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature.

It is possible. Flavours have been lost to the past, as culinary physicist Lenore Newman explains. She points to the extinction of the passenger pigeon — a species numbering in the billions throughout North America — as an example. In 1914, Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati zoo — and in place of the pigeon, came the industrialized farming of chicken. Newman says we're now transitioning to lab-raised food — a technology capable of pushing a global history of scarcity into one of abundance, all the while easing land usage. She calls it the "food singularity."

At a time when the future of Iran is uncertain, we revisit an IDEAS documentary about the history of women’s resistance in Iran — women who in 1979 harboured dreams of freedom and democracy. After ousting the Shah, and mere weeks after Ayatollah Khomeini took power, Iranian women marched to show their fury at the revolution. Forty years after their protest, documentary maker Donya Ziaee spoke to three Iranian women who were there, fighting to turn the tide of history. *This episode originally aired on March 8, 2019.

Accusations of a stolen election, laws targeting NGOs and media, violent treatment of protestors — sometimes live on TV. What’s happening in the republic of Georgia right now typifies what is happening geopolitically around the world. The authoritarian ruling party called Georgian Dream aligns itself with Russia but most citizens want the country to join the European Union. There have been 400 consecutive days of protests before 2026 against the Georgian Dream government.

Radio documentary makers David Zane Mairowitz and Malgorzata Zerwe were in the capital Tbilisi, and to record the Family Purity Parade and a demonstration, each from opposing ends of the political spectrum, for this documentary.

That’s what Hanna Pickard argues. After analyzing the scientific research, and working with those who’ve stopped self-destructive drug and alcohol use, the Johns Hopkins philosopher sees addiction as a complex behavioural disorder. She argues it’s driven by individual psychology and social circumstances, and should be treated that way. Jowita Bydlowska and Michael Kaufmann, both memoirists of addiction, weigh in.

Guests in this episode:

Hanna Pickard is the author of What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing but Cocaine? A Philosophy of Addiction (2026). She is a professor of philosophy and bioethics, as well as psychological & brain sciences, at Johns Hopkins University.

Jowita Bydlowska is a writer of fiction, as well as two memoirs of addiction: Drunk Mom, and Unshaming: A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse, and What Comes After (2026).

Dr. I. Michael Kaufmann is emeritus medical director of the Physician Health Program of the Ontario Medical Association. He is a retired family doctor, a retired addiction doctor, and the author of Drugs, Lies, and Docs: A Doctor's Memoir of Addiction (2024).