Interview by Sabrina Houssami
Adam Spencer is one of Australia’s most
popular science communicators – as well as
a broadcaster, comedian and author. This
year he was named the University of
Sydney’s first Mathematics and Science
Ambassador. His latest publication is the
Big Book of Numbers, a tour through
the numbers 1 to 100.
Let’s start with an easy one… A breakfast show
host, a mathematician and an author walk into a
bar. You’re already there. Who do you make
friends with?
Interesting question – I presume I’m at least one of
the people walking into the bar? Otherwise it’s a
pretty weird coincidence that all three of the things
I’ve been or am, are represented by the 3 people
walking in??? But I’m already in the bar … so either
I’m none of the three people walking in or this is a
bar in some hyperdimensional quantum universe in
which I can be inside and outside the bar at the same
time?
Or it’s a hypothetical situation … and I’ve spent so
much time trying to work out what’s going on, the
mathematician the author and the breakfast radio host
have already ordered up and gone off to a table and
are chatting, without me, who stands alone in this
crazy quantum universe bar. Story of my life!!!
Your latest work, The Big Book of Numbers, is
self-published. Why did you choose to publish this
way?
I wanted to write 2 books in 1 – a book of great
numerical trivia that has no mathematical content at
all AND a book about the beauty of mathematics,
especially aimed at curious high school kids. That’s a
pretty hard sell for a publisher so I decided “what the
hey, let’s do it anyway.”