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Infinity is a big idea whose time has come. Now that all those nines have turned to zeros, in a universe that’s expanding on forever, it’s time to set our sights a bit further out.

Infinity taps the root of a vague existential fear, a mind boggling vastness that defies a greater meaning, but it’s a mathematician’s playground, too.

It turns out, when you’re talking about infinity, size matters – and big infinities can come in small packages. A bean-counter counting an infinite pile of beans, for instance, starts at one and goes on forever – but that infinity is smaller than all the numerical subdivisions between zero and one.

We’re aiming to see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, to hold infinity in the palms of our hands, and eternity in an hour… or at least fit an infinite tutorial into one hour of radio in this hour of the Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Robert and Ellen Kaplan, founders of The Math Circle.

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The Y2K sky didn’t fall, after all. The elevators didn’t plummet.

The planes fall didn’t out of the sky. There’s been no terrorism. No runs on the bank. And maybe you’re sitting there with your six-month survival hoard of dried lentils and purified water, half-wishing the world had collapsed, because you were so well prepared for the worst.

But seriously, is this the moment to pay homage to the army of programming geeks that steered the world away from a Y2K catastrophe? Or are you ready for some hard words with the Chicken Littles of the millenial moment-fat and happy Chicken Littles after American industry spent $250-billion dollars anticipating the kinks in our computers when the numbers rolled over to aught-aught.

We spent a world-war sort of budget against an enemy that never showed. Were we had? Is computer rule more secure than ever? Do we still have to worry about the real millenium a year from now?

The end of the Y2K hype is here and we’re taking stock of what did – and didn’t – happen.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Watts Wacker, futurist and Michael Dertouzos, director of MIT Computer Lab on the Connection.