S11E2: Mathematics, or, the pursuit of perfection in an imperfect world, with Saurabh

This is Desi Academia Podcast's Golden Jubilee, and we are so glad you have been with us on this journey! For this special episode, we bring on friend of the podcast Saurabh, and talk to him about his academic journey as a mathematician. He takes us through his remarkable journey as a researcher in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Israel, and Switzerland.

Saurabh tells us about what it mean to “encounter infinity” through mathematics, what is it like to understand the world by asking ‘if this certainty was weakened, would the theorem still hold true’, and what it's like to ask great questions without thinking about applications.

We talk about how Saurabh found his passion for teaching, his pivot to industry, his experiences with the political realities of all the places he inhabited, and how he finds joy in his work.

Recommendations:

• Saurabh

  • Book: Everybody Loves a Good Drought

  • The Wire

  • Powder

  • Capernaum

  • El secreto de sus ojos

  • Argentina 1985

  • “AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself”

  • “AI may upend online studies critical to social science”

• Vatsal

  • What Noam Chomsky’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein says about progressive politics

• Megh

  • Pleurebis

  • Ted Lasso

  • Humans in the Loop

  • Murtagh