Mathematicians Interviewed - 2. Dr James Grime

This is the second instalment in the series of famous mathematicians being interviewed. This week is very special, because I am interviewing YouTube mathematics sensation Dr James Grime. Dr Grime has his own maths channel, singing banana which regularly uploads exciting maths and is regularly on Numberphile, YouTube's most popular mathematics channel. I would like to thank Dr Grime for answering my questions and I hope everyone enjoys reading.

1. What inspired you to become a mathematician?

It had been a quiet, secret ambition from when I discovered that was something you could do. And, because I don't come from an academic family, I learnt that was something you could do through childrens TV, programmes like How 2 and presenters like Johnny Ball. I didn't tell anyone that was my ambition, because it seemed very unlikely I would achieve it. 

2. What is your favourite area of mathematics and why?

The area I got my PhD in and researched was Group Theory - that's the study of symmetry. In maths, symmetry means there is something you care about that you want to stay the same, which might shape, angle, length, volume, magnitude or something like that. But the maths appealed to me, it takes a step back and considers the broader picture rather than the minute details. I'm also quite fond of number theory and statistics, I want to have a broad knowledge, but sometimes it's like trying to drink the ocean.

3. If you could discover any conjecture or problem what would it be and why?

This is a difficult one. There are some problems that I never finished when I was working in research that would be personally satisfying to solve - but they wouldn't change the world. The Millennium Problems are the biggest unsolved problems with lots of important consequences, but being the guy who solved one of those would probably take over your life (this fantasy doesn't involve any actual work does it?)

4. What is your favourite maths book and why?

A general audience book would be Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh. I read that when I was in sixth form, it's a great story, with bits of maths in the appendices, and it showed me what it could be like to be a mathematician. It was an influence on me.

For an actual maths book... maybe One Million Random Digits. You'll never see the twist coming.

5. What do you think could be done to encourage more interest in maths in children and young people?

Everyone is different. What works for one person will not work for someone else. We are a combination of many influences. So when I make maths videos, that isn't to replace teaching or anything else, but it is there for people to take it if they like it, or leave it if they don't. However, there are ways to teach maths badly, making it a chore is one example!

6. What advice would you give to a 16 or 17 year old who is thinking of studying maths at university?

If you are thinking that I think that's great. University is a great experience, regardless of which subject you want to study. For maths all I would say is, if you pay attention in lectures you can do the coursework, if you can do the coursework you can do the exams. If you want to do more than just pass exams I would say, try and understand why things work, and how things work and you will go far.

7. What breakthroughs do you think are imminent in maths?

Some recent breakthroughs have seemly come out of nowhere, including progress on the twin prime conjecture which says there are infinitely many pairs of primes with a difference of 2. Yitang Zhang was a little known mathematician who showed there are infinitely many pairs of primes that differ by 70 million or less. A collaborative project then reduced that figure to 246. This is not quite 2 but huge progress otherwise. Similar collaborative projects have recently proved other unsolved problems. It's hard to say which will be the next breakthrough.

8. Who is your favourite mathematician past or present and why?

I talk a lot about Alan Turing who was not only a World War II code breaker, but as a young man before the war solved one of the big unsolved problems at the time known as the Decision Problem. The question was, is there a single method that could solve all mathematical problems after some (possible large) finite steps. To solve this problem Turing conceived of a machine that could perform any mathematical operation a man could do. This is the beginning of computer science which our whole modern world depends on. He solved the problem in the negative, there is no such method. After the war he then makes huge contributions to computer science, artificial intelligence and mathematical biology where he modelled why zebras have stripes and leopards have spots. His contributions were groundbreaking in not just pure mathematics but in several fields and are still important today.

9. What do you feel is your greatest contribution to mathematics?

I would like to say my greatest contributions are my research, but it's probably my promotion of the subject to others through YouTube. I can live with that.