Episode 57 features Sam Leiterman, a mathematician and teacher, who came on to discuss math, and we do before taking a left turn to talk about books, literature, young adult novels, engineering, divergent paths, and much much more.
Throughout the conversation, we discuss:
- Why Math?
- Two paths diverged
- Passion
- Challenging yourself
- Writing
- Reading
- Reading variations
- Reading patterns
- Collecting books
- Completionist vs. Letting It Go
- Lending and Gifting Books
- Young Adult Literature
- Abstract Algebra
- Teaching
- And much more
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:23:22
Agent Palmer
Previously on agent Palmer dot com spy line in the Case of the Missing Agent Palmer book review. It all begins with a song sings praises of the creative process, and since the journalist conversation with Sky, I’m leaning towards calling myself a features writer and documentary conversationalist. This is The Palmer Files episode 57 featuring Sam Leitermann, a mathematician and teacher who came on to discuss math.
00:00:23:22 – 00:01:04:17
Agent Palmer
And we do, before taking a left turn to talk about books, literature, young adult novels, engineering, divergent paths, and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:04:22 – 00:01:25:08
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic. Also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 57th episode is Sam Leitermann, who’s path towards math appears to mirror my path to communications. As you’ll soon hear, the discussion is as chaotic as you have come to expect from this podcast. We start with my asking Sam why math?
00:01:25:14 – 00:01:54:21
Agent Palmer
And then take a left turn from whiteboards full of equations, solving for X to the library full of books. We talk about math because Sam is a mathematician, but we also talk about following a passion. Challenging yourself. The road not taken. Reading and reading patterns. Young adult literature. Abstract. Algebra. Teaching. Twitch and so much more. Now, before we get going, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer.
00:01:54:27 – 00:02:18:49
Agent Palmer
My guest, Sam at Sam Leitermann. That’s Sam ly t r m a and and this show at the Palmer Files. You can watch Sam along with John on Twitch at the math profs at Twitch.tv. Slash the math profs. That’s profs email can be sent to this show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember, you’re home for all things.
00:02:18:51 – 00:02:32:29
Agent Palmer
Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com. So without further ado, let’s start to solve for X. And don’t forget to show your work.
00:02:32:34 – 00:02:54:54
Agent Palmer
Sam, you not only probably learned more math than I ever did, but you kept choosing to go to higher education and continue to learn math. I am astounded by this, and I’m slightly jealous. So first off, why math?
00:02:54:59 – 00:03:21:08
Sam Leitermann
It’s a it’s a great question. And, maybe circle back to to choosing to go higher math gives you insight into understanding so many different venues of the world. And I think a major mistake that folks can make is to believe that math is sort of this neutral subject, that it sits analytically above everything else. Because that’s absolutely not true.
00:03:21:09 – 00:03:46:09
Sam Leitermann
It’s just not a fact. But I feel like I have insights into physics because I understand the math behind it, and I have insights into political forecasting because I understand the math behind it. It’s such a powerful tool to to analyze and to put your hands onto things that are that feel unknowable or that feel very hard to know.
00:03:46:14 – 00:04:06:06
Sam Leitermann
And so I love it for that reason. That’s that’s kind of the first thing. Right? It’s it’s it it feels useful and meaningful. But there’s also I mean, there’s a portion of it that is just about math is beautiful in and of itself. It’s got this sense of connection to itself that that I don’t see in a lot of places.
00:04:06:06 – 00:04:33:40
Sam Leitermann
It. Good example. I’m teaching linear algebra right now. And, and students often ask me questions like, what does it mean for a vector to have this property? And I have to sit there and go, well, well, which meaning do you want? That’s a contextual answer, right? It depends on, you know, if I’m thinking about this type of math that involves this thing and I’m thinking about this type of math involves this thing and that sense of connection, is really it’s really valuable and maybe is the reason why I kept looking.
00:04:33:41 – 00:05:10:52
Agent Palmer
I, I so I understand that, like, I’m like, I, I expect unless we actually start getting into very, very high math, you will not lose me. Unlike the educational system. Because for me, I think I have and continue to have that analytical brain that you need to function within mathematics, right? It’s not just memorization, because I feel like that’s a part of and we’re not going to we’re not going to we’re not going to get on the educational diatribe here.
00:05:10:52 – 00:05:32:47
Agent Palmer
But like, for me, one of the things that was always amazing was, yeah, whether you had the math teacher that was going to let you look at the book or not like, or you had to memorize it or whatever. There were people that just simply looked at the equation, even if they had an open book test and went, I don’t understand this.
00:05:32:56 – 00:06:05:18
Agent Palmer
That was never my problem. My problem was I had a much better English teacher in eighth grade, and my entire focus shifted from math and science to the arts. Right? You lost me as a potential engineer or physicist. You know, two subjects I had great interest in still. But you lost me along that path by having a stronger English teacher in eighth grade because it shifted my direction in that regard.
00:06:05:23 – 00:06:32:13
Agent Palmer
But I understand how important it is. And and this is why I’m interested in, like, the potential for you choosing math, as a subject. Because, you know, at a certain point and I’ve been I’ve been trying to read more. And so I read all about, you know, things I enjoy, right. And trying to get out there. But I’ve read a little bit about World War two.
00:06:32:13 – 00:06:59:33
Agent Palmer
I read a lot about NASA and the moonshot and the math that they’re doing in the 60s is math that I can understand, like it’s ridiculous. Like, it’s it’s just not complicated to me. But I understand that’s not everyone. So, like, you know, math might have been one of my favorite subjects up until eighth grade, so I guess we’ll start here.
00:06:59:38 – 00:07:04:46
Agent Palmer
Was it one of. Is it or was it one of your favorite subjects?
00:07:04:51 – 00:07:29:40
Sam Leitermann
It is though. I had higher SAT scores than math scores. And this is, this was, a question that came up in my college interview. You know, why are you pursuing this, this degree instead of, you know, writing or something or something? But but I always have loved it. I’ve loved it since the moment that I stepped into an algebra one high school classroom in eighth grade.
00:07:29:40 – 00:07:53:46
Sam Leitermann
So eighth grade is really where I got hooked. It’s interesting that this is, this is a distinction for us because I got to go to a high school math class in my eighth grade year, and I spent time in that classroom with you know, people that were much bigger than me, certainly physically. But but got to begin to see the, the beauty of, I mean, I just I love algebra, right?
00:07:53:47 – 00:08:16:55
Sam Leitermann
The beauty of kind of manipulation of symbols. And how did that work? And I really have that love has, has kind of extended through. I’m really fortunate that I had good teachers and teachers that that really commanded a love of mathematics and made it feel real and valuable. And I know that that’s not something that everyone has gotten.
00:08:16:59 – 00:08:36:46
Sam Leitermann
And so I feel so lucky to do that. I got a C in pre-calculus in my junior year. I absolutely could have decided that I was not going to pursue math, but I loved it. And even that teacher who gave me that C, which I totally deserved. In hindsight, I appreciate and and really still instilled that love for me.
00:08:37:00 – 00:08:39:43
Sam Leitermann
So it has been it really has been a lifelong.
00:08:39:48 – 00:09:18:21
Agent Palmer
Trigonometry, I think may be the highest, I don’t know, academic level of math I’ve ever studied, I guess because because, full disclosure, I may, I like so I, I skipped my senior year to go to college, which was not necessarily a function of me being super smart as a just a, you know, a situational thing. But I had Trig, the, the first half of my junior year of high school, which is right before I went overseas for a semester abroad, where I continued trigonometry.
00:09:18:25 – 00:09:48:03
Agent Palmer
I don’t remember a math when I skipped my senior year and was enrolled in college. In fact, my entire career, four years of higher education at a college, I took algebra, I think I just took algebra and then like, science and science because it was another math science elective. So I got away with getting away from it.
00:09:48:07 – 00:10:16:06
Agent Palmer
And I think and I know I’m saying this again, but I feel like it’s important. I think that the fact that I lost interest, it’s not that I couldn’t do it. I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I could do it today and just pick up those books and study. But I lost interest and and to me, and while eighth grade is critical, it like I never got it back, right.
00:10:16:07 – 00:10:38:36
Agent Palmer
Like I never even like I’ve read physics books because physics books are great philosophy books. Which is a part of math that I’m sure we’ll talk about, but I never fell back in. I love the philosophy of it. I really do. I love the analytical nature of it. I like predictions and probabilities and, you know, game theory.
00:10:38:36 – 00:11:01:07
Agent Palmer
And I look, I went for a run this afternoon. Okay. And like every, you know, former athlete, I, I definitely compare myself to 20 years ago. And so I know I’m running slower, but I still like to keep my pace is up. And I do the math in my head that the first half mile was at, 7.5 minute pace.
00:11:01:11 – 00:11:24:00
Agent Palmer
The first mile was at an eight minute pace, so clearly the second half mile was eight and a half. Like, I do that math in my head while I’m running. Why I have no I like I could be doing anything else with my tie. Right? I’m doing the math on my splits in my head so I understand, like that I could do it, but.
00:11:24:05 – 00:11:42:51
Agent Palmer
And you’ve been there. So this is my question. Do you feel like in hindsight, you needed the love, the the the the interest, the passion for math to keep going? Right? Because obviously that’s where it feels like our roads diverged?
00:11:42:53 – 00:12:03:44
Sam Leitermann
Yeah. I mean, I definitely think I did, and I think that this is, it’s a it’s a place where the system really treated me well and it fails a lot of kids. It’s a reason I left, actually, the collegiate world for the high school. Well, this, this, this really meaningful moment where we can lose people or or gain people.
00:12:03:45 – 00:12:24:45
Sam Leitermann
And for me, the ability of my teachers to keep coming to the table, to keep making it relevant and meaningful to me was a reason that I kept persevering. One of my one of my favorite, favorite writers says people don’t, stick to things just because they’re good at sticking to things. They stick to things because they care about them, right?
00:12:24:45 – 00:12:26:00
Sam Leitermann
Because they’re meaningful.
00:12:26:02 – 00:12:26:24
Agent Palmer
Sure.
00:12:26:29 – 00:12:51:42
Sam Leitermann
And so the calculation of your splits is meaningful to you. You care about it because it has meaning. I mean, because you’re comparing yourself to something, right? There’s a there’s a there’s a meaning there for you. And I think that sense of, of, of meaning or value that was brought is the reason I stuck to it. I certainly didn’t stick to it just because I, at least in my opinion, maybe I don’t know myself very well.
00:12:51:47 – 00:13:12:06
Sam Leitermann
That there was like innately something that called me to it. I’m a I’m a pretty good writer. I love history, right. There’s there’s lots of reasons why I could have gone in a very different direction, and chose not to. And so now it rings true to me that there are folks that continue to show that value to me that kept me on that path.
00:13:12:19 – 00:13:45:12
Agent Palmer
Yeah. One of the things that I regret, actually, is not sticking with it. Like, I know I just said like passion would have helped me persevere, but, my uncle always told me and still to this day tells me, like the world needs engineers who can write like, don’t go to school for writing. If you can write, because all the teaching in the world is not going to make you a better writer.
00:13:45:17 – 00:14:06:29
Agent Palmer
Writing unfortunately. Break. You know, hot take writing is kind of an instinct. You either have to like you can work to get better. But I’m. I was never going to run a four minute mile. Right? I was never going to. I could work myself down to sub six when I was a teenager, but I was never going to run a four minute mile.
00:14:06:30 – 00:14:27:54
Agent Palmer
It just wasn’t going to happen. There are people that just will never be able to write, and that’s fine. But if you already know how to write, go learn something else. And I was idealistic. I was like, but I wanted I want to take the arts classes, right? Like, I, I went where the passion was and there’s nothing wrong with that.
00:14:27:59 – 00:14:57:14
Agent Palmer
But I do have that little like not little. I do have that. What if that’s like. Well I everything I’m doing now I could have done like none of this changes. I just have a better fundamental understanding of math. Right. Or a more advanced understanding of math. So do you. I mean, do you have like a what if the opposite?
00:14:57:14 – 00:15:03:51
Agent Palmer
Like, are you literally my top like my opposite doppelganger? Like, am I looking in a mirror of somebody who’s like, oh, I should have done writing.
00:15:04:04 – 00:15:22:27
Sam Leitermann
So I don’t know if this is my last class. One of my one of my last classes of my undergraduate. I was in a freshman English class. So weird scenario I transferred between my sophomore and junior year of college. And so I had this weird amalgamation of credits that got me two years, but it got me two years in, like a very strange way.
00:15:22:32 – 00:15:49:23
Sam Leitermann
And all my core courses I hadn’t taken, at least according to the university that I transferred to. So I ended up in my very last semester of college. I was a senior. I was, I think, 22. I might have been 21 at the time in this freshman English class, entirely out of place, right. And so I, I go to the last class and I take this final, and I had turned in this paper, and this paper was on Frankenstein, waiting for Godot.
00:15:49:37 – 00:16:12:50
Sam Leitermann
And, The Tempest and the. And man’s search for meaning and loneliness. Right. It’s actually, it was a, really fun paper to write. I still remember writing this paper, and my English teacher caught me outside my door as I left my final, and he said, where are you going after this? And I said, I’m going to grad school, as I had already gotten in at that point, and I knew what I was going to do.
00:16:12:55 – 00:16:34:14
Sam Leitermann
And he said, for for writing. And I said, no, I’m, I’m going for math. I’m doing a PhD in mathematics. And he said, if you ever decide to change your mind, call me, I’ll write you a recommendation letter. And I had a degree in math like, I, I was not qualified, at least in my eyes, for a PhD in writing.
00:16:34:18 – 00:16:53:20
Sam Leitermann
But I will say that there are times. I mean, I have an intense love of literature I read often, I read at least 100 bucks a year. That’s like my baseline goal. I, I write often, I have an intense love of this, and I do occasionally wonder what would happen if I had taken him up on that offer.
00:16:53:20 – 00:17:01:49
Sam Leitermann
Right? If I had decided to change my entire direction in that moment? Yeah, it definitely. It definitely is a question I have sometimes.
00:17:01:49 – 00:17:31:17
Agent Palmer
So what do you like? What are you reading? Because I don’t. You’re busy. Right? You have a job, you have a career, you have kids and a family like. And you’re making time to read. Which to me is always the important. It’s. You know, I read approximately 60 to 75 books a year, give or take. And I usually sometimes take like a week off or two weeks off or just I’m not going to read.
00:17:31:17 – 00:17:57:56
Agent Palmer
But, you know, I had to set aside the time to be like, I’m going to reading is going to be a priority. I don’t get to talk to a lot of readers, and I don’t mean that to put anyone down. Everyone’s busy and it’s immensely easier to turn on a screen. It doesn’t matter what you’re consuming. Look, that’s just it doesn’t.
00:17:58:01 – 00:18:33:42
Agent Palmer
But I’m always curious as to what you’re reading because, like, I read my interests, but I have learned over the course of stubbornness that I can read anything. Right? So I have chosen specific authors that I am reading bibliographies up. So Len Deighton, I’m reading through his bibliography. And while he did write, you know, The Ipcress File, which gives me the movie starring Michael Caine, which gives me a Jim Palmer and he you know, wrote a series of ten books with the Bernard Sampson.
00:18:33:42 – 00:19:05:04
Agent Palmer
He also wrote a lot of nonfiction. So currently right now I’m reading about World War Two again, because he wrote a bunch of books on World War Two. And my whole thing of, well, I’m going to read every book in the order it was published means that before I can get to the last trilogy of the Samson verse, so to speak, I have to read this book, and Douglas Copeland and Clive Barker and Terry Brooks, like, there are authors where I’m just like, I’m reading all of your stuff.
00:19:05:09 – 00:19:44:53
Agent Palmer
And so this is put me in an interesting spot because I’m now not just reading. Well, I really like NASA. How many biographies of the original astronauts can I get my hands on? Or like, I really like music. Who’s got a good you know, the Dylan book was fun. I read a book on Zappa like. So it’s not just that I have learned, like, I can go out of my comfort zone and when I finish these authors, because I have this elaborate math might actually help me in this because I get this elaborate, like I read a fiction and nonfiction and fiction and nonfiction, but I also try and mix up my authors so I
00:19:44:53 – 00:20:03:21
Agent Palmer
don’t read like, so it’s like dating and then maybe a nonfiction and then maybe a middle fiction that’s not related to it. Like it’s just it’s weird patterns that I’ve tried to create for myself. But when you make an effort and you go, like, I’m going to read, like, then all of a sudden you’re like, oh, I finished a book.
00:20:03:21 – 00:20:16:04
Agent Palmer
I finished another book, I finished the book, I finished another one. So all of that is to say, like, what are you reading? Because clearly you’re someone who, like me, can go after or anything. Really?
00:20:16:09 – 00:20:37:47
Sam Leitermann
Yeah. I so right now I’m reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Okay. A fan, we share a love by the way, of Clive Barker and of Terry Books. I have been a fantasy fan for a long time. I read Tolkien when I was very young, and sort of have read much of the canon and had never read Wheel of Time.
00:20:37:47 – 00:20:58:21
Sam Leitermann
And Amazon’s coming out with a TV series. Right. So it felt like the right time. But I also end up in the same problem that you end up in, which is I got to about book five of Wheel of Time, and I was like, I can’t read another Robert Jordan book. It’s not going to work out. I’ve just like, you’ve read five of them in a row, and I and I like them and I just can’t manage it.
00:20:58:26 – 00:21:24:18
Sam Leitermann
So I’ve worked really hard to, to, sort of very my, my reading. So I also, you know, I, I do educational research, so I keep up on that and it feels like there’s a book published sort of every week, though, though I try to be a little bit discriminating about those choices, I also sometimes just look at the New York Times bestseller list and choose a book that feels like I wouldn’t normally choose it.
00:21:24:23 – 00:21:41:43
Sam Leitermann
Okay. And just try to get like a sense of because I think I can find myself going back to the, well, you know, going back to the like, this is a fantasy series. It’s like most of the other fantasy series that I know. Like, I’m just going to read the new Brandon Sanderson book, which, don’t get me wrong, love Brandon Sanderson.
00:21:41:43 – 00:22:02:02
Sam Leitermann
Very excited when he releases books, but it does help me break out of that into some piece of fiction or some drama that I wouldn’t normally read that that is, you know, lovely. And often I find things that I do love that I wouldn’t, wouldn’t otherwise have read.
00:22:02:13 – 00:22:28:46
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I recently, and I’ve talked about this on the show, but I’ve also not really gone in depth, but like, I’ve been purging my house, just trying. I was a packrat for way too long of my life. Really. And it’s just like I’m done. And what I found now is outside of an overabundance of magic cards that I just cannot seem to get rid of is.
00:22:28:46 – 00:22:57:50
Agent Palmer
Books are my weakness. But I haven’t read all of them. So for me, outside of maybe finishing the Dayton collection or finishing the Copland collection, or maybe fixing a few because I went on on the Barker front, I was like, I think I want to slowly get all of these in hardcover. Because when I, when I did the Dayton collection, they’re all hardcover.
00:22:57:50 – 00:23:30:12
Agent Palmer
I you can’t always get first editions, but they’re hardcover, right? And the Dayton collection was fun because I put it up on eBay like as an alert. And it was like, you know, it pings you and you’re like, all right, this is exciting. Like, oh, do I have this one? Do I not, you know, like the Barker one I put up on eBay because the Dayton one was done and I got a ping on like a collection of, like 14 hardcovers within like the first week I put it up and I, I did the math and it ended up being like, super good.
00:23:30:12 – 00:23:51:11
Agent Palmer
Like this is worth doing. So I did it. I was like, all right, that’s fine. And I didn’t realize how much he wrote. Like, I knew he was prolific and I had read not a lot, but I’d read a what I thought was a lot. And it’s like, no, no, you have it like I have a collection of Dayton behind me.
00:23:51:11 – 00:24:18:22
Agent Palmer
Okay, it’s 40 bucks, right? You don’t realize what 40 bucks looks like till it takes up two bookshelves, right? Like it’s just 0000. Okay. Right. And and Barker, it’s not the same way. Like I don’t have we’ve world in hardcover yet. The other, you know, a bunch of the other ones I do, I so it and and the Terry Brooks, by the way.
00:24:18:27 – 00:25:03:42
Agent Palmer
I don’t have, I have in the hardcover omnibuses of the Shannara series. Which funny story on that if you’re ever if you want to be a reader, like we like Sam and I are talking you out, right? Like, you sit down and you read. Do not get an omnibus. Okay. So I will tell you, I have a digital Kindle copy of the first Sort of Shannara omnibus, because I was halfway through book one when I got food poisoning, and I was so tired and weak I couldn’t hold up the book to continue reading, but I really wanted to continue reading because I’m sick.
00:25:03:42 – 00:25:22:52
Agent Palmer
So what else am I going to do? So I ended up buying it on Kindle, right? So that it. But it is this weird thing where I’m like, all right, now I’ve got all these books and I’ve got these collections, but I’m done because I have books that I’ve held on to. So going back to the whole I’m getting rid of stuff.
00:25:22:57 – 00:25:42:40
Agent Palmer
Well, I’m not the kind of person that just going to get rid of it. I need to know, like, okay, time to read this book that I’ve moved from. You know, somebody bought me a long time ago that I moved from my parents house to my apartment to now my house. Or maybe there were a couple movies that, like these books that I picked these books up.
00:25:42:40 – 00:26:06:41
Agent Palmer
I’ve put them in boxes. I’ve taken them out of, like, they follow me. Why do I have this book right? And so some of these books have been wonderful surprises. Like, I’m so glad I held on to that. There are definitely some that I’m not looking forward to. But again, in getting out of your comfort zone and I’ve been very lucky, just like you.
00:26:06:46 – 00:26:44:21
Agent Palmer
I’ve hate read one book, okay, because I’m a completionist, so I have to finish it. But I hated every page of it. It’s the one bad review on my entire blog. Good luck finding it. Because it’s years old now. So that’s your one hint. But I’m kind of excited to read some of the random stuff I’ve kind of collected or absorbed somehow into my library over the years, but just looking around like, because I don’t have a library, my house isn’t massive.
00:26:44:21 – 00:27:09:57
Agent Palmer
So I’ve got a bookshelf here, a bookshelf there, right? And, I, you know, I keep all my dating, you know, you try and be organized, but there’s a massive amount of religious texts that I have to figure out what I’m going to do with, because once you start collecting, especially Jewish literature, it multiplies on you somehow.
00:27:09:57 – 00:27:30:08
Agent Palmer
So, I don’t know how that’s all going to shape out, but I’m not going to get rid of it. I’m going to read it first. And so I know I’ve got some of that ahead of me, but I keep stalling. It. Have you read everything in your house? Let me, you know, start there.
00:27:30:17 – 00:27:52:43
Sam Leitermann
I have not read everything in my house. And I will say I am more than willing to bail out of a book if I get, you know, halfway through it. And I, you know, like, in my opinion, I’ve only got a finite amount of books that I’m able to read in my life. So finishing one that I, that I absolutely hate, not really on my list of things to do.
00:27:52:43 – 00:28:12:08
Sam Leitermann
Most of the time, though, I did finish Atlas Shrugged and I did hate approximately every page of that book, but. But I felt like it. At least. You know, it helped me understand some things about the world that we live in these days, which is is useful. I certainly haven’t read everything in my house. I’ve read a lot of it.
00:28:12:13 – 00:28:36:12
Sam Leitermann
There are weird books that are on my shelf that I really actually not sure where they came from. I just that, you know, I’m sure that they were accumulated somewhere, somehow, through some friends. Someone gave them to me. And there’s a bunch of those. And like you, I sort of, I look at them and I say, I should definitely read you.
00:28:36:17 – 00:28:59:58
Sam Leitermann
Yeah, many of them are like, sort of like kind of in my genre. They like in the kind of set of things that I read. So I, I’m, I’m probably I’d probably enjoy you and then, you know, inevitably my attention gets attracted elsewhere. And so it’s a concerted effort. And I’ve gotten through some of them. Right. Like I insert in sometimes I’ve just, like, made a concerted effort of like, this book has existed in my life for a long time.
00:29:00:03 – 00:29:26:06
Sam Leitermann
And I should go do something about that. But some of them just kind of float. They just kind of like, exist. And that’s, that continues to work. I will say, the other thing that I’ve been successful at is, sometimes I give books that I love away to people that I, that I care about to students. So one of my, one of my favorite things to do with students that graduate that I’ve had, like a relationship with, that like we’ve been close is to give them a favorite book.
00:29:26:11 – 00:29:43:16
Sam Leitermann
So I, Frank Herbert’s estate must love me because I must have bought like 12 copies of Dune. At this point. It’s one of my favorite books, but I’ve met a lot of students who should read Dune, so I, I, you know, I write, write something in the front cover for them and I give it to them. And that has thinned my book collection a little bit.
00:29:43:20 – 00:29:52:57
Sam Leitermann
Okay. For books that I sort of know that I’m not going to read, or I’ll just buy another copy if I like, do end up rereading them. I feel like it’s meaningful, like it’s going to someone who will care for it.
00:29:52:57 – 00:30:22:09
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that. Yeah, I, I’ve, I’ve actually only lent one book out that I didn’t get back, and I, I considered this particular book a mitzvah of sorts. Because it was Duff McKagan s first Autobot, I think his first autobiography. I don’t know if he wrote a second one. I know he wrote a second book. I don’t know what that book is.
00:30:22:14 – 00:30:49:29
Agent Palmer
And his first book was all about recovery. It’s I mean, yeah, I mean, he talks about, you know, growing up in the northwest and, you know, playing all of the instruments and then migrating to LA and getting into guns N roses. But the book really picks up and really focuses on him waking up and needing to go to the hospital and the recovery aspect.
00:30:49:34 – 00:31:19:15
Agent Palmer
And so I lent it to a friend who finished it, and lent it to a another, a friend of his who was going through recovery. And so I didn’t get it back, but I feel like I did okay if that book even kind of remotely helped that other guy. Now my collection’s incomplete because I got slash, I got Axl, and I don’t have Duff, but it’s okay because I feel like I kinda maybe may.
00:31:19:19 – 00:31:22:02
Agent Palmer
I hope it helped. I don’t know, but.
00:31:22:07 – 00:31:41:41
Sam Leitermann
Well, and that’s the that’s the power of at least for me. Right. That’s the power of of literature is when I can see myself in either the story of another real person, write nonfiction books, or the story of a fictional person, and I can work out the, the very real, like feelings and emotions and experiences that I’m having.
00:31:41:46 – 00:32:02:58
Sam Leitermann
Right? That’s like that’s when a book grips me, right? When I, when I can feel myself in that character. So yeah, like, hopefully that person could at least see their journey through that and, and hopefully get maybe even a little bit of hope because they’re seeing the story of recovery. Right. What a what a cool experience.
00:32:02:58 – 00:32:06:41
Agent Palmer
I want to ask you, have you ever cried reading a book?
00:32:06:46 – 00:32:08:14
Sam Leitermann
Yes, I have.
00:32:08:14 – 00:32:09:57
Agent Palmer
Nonfiction or fiction?
00:32:10:02 – 00:32:10:58
Sam Leitermann
Fiction.
00:32:11:03 – 00:33:02:27
Agent Palmer
Okay. Okay. I, I have not cried at fiction, but I have cried at nonfiction even, which is which is a testament. Like he was a guest on this show. Okay. Brian Jones, biographer, he did George Lucas, he did Doctor Seuss, which I haven’t read yet, but he did. Henson. And I don’t know if it’s the way he happened to write that chapter or not, but even though, you know, it’s coming, like, you know, if even if you don’t know Henson, like, you know, at a certain point everything stops and it’s because there is no more Jim, you know, it’s coming and you know, it’s building and you start reading all about
00:33:02:27 – 00:33:31:59
Agent Palmer
it and the tears just come. But I’ve never it’s not for me. It’s never happened in fiction. Which is why I ask. Because I’m I and what’s weird is it’s not. I’ve read other nonfiction where people have died. Henson apparently did it for me. That was it. Brian Morsell. Tom’s like you. You hit me, right? Like, I don’t know what it was about that.
00:33:32:04 – 00:33:36:46
Agent Palmer
So what was it for you? What fiction, if you don’t mind me putting you on the spot?
00:33:36:51 – 00:33:58:08
Sam Leitermann
Yeah. No. John Greene’s looking for Alaska, so, John Greene, you know, classic. Maybe he would get mad that I call him a young adult author, but. But author for young adults. But who treats young adults rather seriously? Let’s put it that way. And, I will hope that none of your audience hasn’t read this book, because I’m.
00:33:58:08 – 00:34:30:36
Sam Leitermann
I’m going to spoil it for them. But the, the titular character, Alaska, dies about three quarters of the way through the book, and it’s sort of it’s sort of choreographed, like it’s sort of telegraphed, but but you sort of like go into it still expecting it’s not going to happen. And it was I think it was a combination, you know, it’s the story, a little bit of young love and of like finding your identity in, in a time that’s really difficult in, like, young adulthood.
00:34:30:41 – 00:34:51:59
Sam Leitermann
And I think that, you know, I was in a space where I really empathize with that idea at the time. But it’s such a the way Greene writes that scene, it’s so shattering and it doesn’t. Many books make death seem meaningful, right? Heroes die heroic deaths that their death has meaning. It has purpose.
00:34:51:59 – 00:34:52:45
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:34:52:50 – 00:35:15:22
Sam Leitermann
Sometimes people die. It happens. And it and it doesn’t happen for a good reason and it doesn’t happen. And that the he does honor to that in this book. He does honor to that idea of sometimes people leave and that sucks. And that was a moment. I mean, that was a moment where I, I put that book down.
00:35:15:26 – 00:35:26:36
Sam Leitermann
I actually read that scene and put that book down, and I didn’t finish it for a week. I just couldn’t quite bring myself to finish that piece of literature. And I reread that book reasonably often. One of my favorites.
00:35:26:36 – 00:35:57:21
Agent Palmer
I I’m glad you brought up young adult books because I’ve read young adult books. I’ve reviewed young adult books. To me, I don’t like the I don’t like the way people look down on them for the same reason that like, you’re going to look down on the French fry, but you’re okay with the baked potato, right? Like they’re the it doesn’t matter like it’s what you’re going to do with it.
00:35:57:21 – 00:36:31:16
Agent Palmer
Like, and you know, it’s how you cook it. Whatever. Whatever. Like it’s it’s a story. It’s words. Okay. So maybe it’s not super complex or maybe it is, but it uses smaller words because we don’t need to be great. You know, whatever it is, I’ve enjoyed them. Like to me they’re like candy, look. And if you ignored the author’s that I keep going back to the Copland’s, the Dayton’s, etc., there was a book within the Jurassic World canon.
00:36:31:20 – 00:36:57:45
Agent Palmer
I don’t remember the title, but it’s like the story of Claire, who we meet in Jurassic World one, who’s running the park, and it’s her internship with the park and it is phenomenal. Like, it is absolutely phenomenal. And people would classify it as young adult because it’s aimed at a younger audience. But if you enjoy the franchise, you enjoy the franchise.
00:36:57:45 – 00:37:18:18
Agent Palmer
You want to read this book alongside Jurassic World and Jurassic Park, even though you know the movie universe is different, blah blah blah. I mean, I can hear all of the things, right? But like it, I’m I’m not I’m not, a coming of age female who’s trying to figure out what’s next. So this book is not speaking to me on those terms.
00:37:18:33 – 00:37:28:18
Agent Palmer
I’m just reading it as a story that’s part of a canon I enjoy. And I would put it up there with almost anything I’ve read over the last five years.
00:37:28:22 – 00:37:50:01
Sam Leitermann
Yeah, I and I agree with you. I, I find young adult literature often very good, often just as good as, as the more quote unquote serious literature I read. The The Shadow and Bone series by leap. I do go is a current favorite of mine. I’d say that I think I work with young people a lot.
00:37:50:02 – 00:38:15:09
Sam Leitermann
Right. This is actually one of the things, particularly I work in, in a residential dorm setting now as a, as a, private school teacher and I see those young people do things like fall in love. And there’s, there’s a tendency, I think, of adults to write off those relationships as less meaningful than the relationships that we have.
00:38:15:22 – 00:38:40:07
Sam Leitermann
Yeah, right. I’m married. I have a, incredibly meaningful relationship. You know, I would be shattered if that relationship fell apart. And yet, my students, in many ways, are just as shattered when their relationships fall apart. Even though I know that in ten years, they won’t think about it because it’s it’s important to them right now. Yeah. And so I think we devalue those stories.
00:38:40:22 – 00:38:45:37
Sam Leitermann
We say that those emotions in those stories don’t matter as much. And I think that’s why, you know, literature gets a bad rap.
00:38:45:42 – 00:39:16:54
Agent Palmer
I, I, I wonder too, if it to me reading it seems, it seems like the harder thing to write because when I compare and this is the closest thing I can come that’s both within kind of the same genre. When, when I compare, like, just generally I read two Black Widow novels, like novels, right? Not comic books.
00:39:16:59 – 00:39:39:48
Agent Palmer
Novels. That that I, I really enjoyed them. Right. It was a series, and I don’t know if there’s going to be a third. I just don’t. But to write that in a world where Black Widow is made out with Captain America and not, I’d like to write that and try and keep it on an even keel.
00:39:39:51 – 00:40:04:59
Agent Palmer
Right. And not immediately go for like, the sexual overtones that you get from every Marvel movie. Right? Or the the super violence is not in those books either. Like, there’s things that from an adult perspective, if we’re going to call it a adult fiction, or grown up fiction or whatever we’re going to call it, there’s things we always jump to immediately when we want to make a plot more important.
00:40:05:03 – 00:40:30:21
Agent Palmer
Oh, I love interest. They went on a date once or whatever. Like, you don’t find that you find a lot more character and just internal strife in in in young adult fiction. And I feel like I don’t know if I could write that like it. It seems like you’re writing with a crutch or like writing with one arm tied behind your back, and that’s just from a reading perspective.
00:40:30:21 – 00:40:44:17
Agent Palmer
I, I’m sure to some people it’s easy. And to some people it’s not just like math, right? Or writing, but to me, like I go, well, this is really well done because they don’t have to just jump to whatever.
00:40:44:19 – 00:41:08:14
Sam Leitermann
Yeah, they’re constrained by the by the plot devices that they’re able to use. And I love that sense of internal strife. I, I at least feel like often young adult fiction deals with emotion in a much deeper way, because those are those are sometimes the levers on which they they turn the plot. Right. They, they you can’t go to write these dramatic sort of, you know, scenes of violence and things like that.
00:41:08:23 – 00:41:28:57
Sam Leitermann
So you need the drama to be emotional in many ways. And that to me is so fascinating. And I also, I can’t imagine, I don’t know, I have a hard time empathizing with teenagers. I can do it right. But like, I don’t know their internal emotional life. I am so impressed by folks that can write those things realistically because that has to be hard.
00:41:29:09 – 00:41:30:00
Sam Leitermann
I don’t know how you do that.
00:41:30:00 – 00:41:54:08
Agent Palmer
Well, I think the other part of it is, and it tends to be more of a joke the older you get. But the okay, it tends to be more of a joke the actual age when it increases. But what is your internal age like when you think like. Because here’s the thing. So I went for a run today and I’m still comparing myself to 16 year old me.
00:41:54:12 – 00:42:22:31
Agent Palmer
Right? In my mind, I might as well just be 18, not an almost 40 something that has a mortgage, right? Like it. That may be the truth of my situation, but it is not how I think of myself internally, and I feel like it’s one of those things that reading does is like, oh, I can I can when I read the young adult stuff, it’s not hard for me to put myself right in there because I don’t feel that much.
00:42:22:35 – 00:42:30:04
Agent Palmer
Look, I am actually super old compared to these characters, but in my mind’s eye I am not.
00:42:30:08 – 00:42:52:43
Sam Leitermann
Yeah. And I think it’s I think it’s so interesting that that we can do that. Right. You know, I always feel like my internal age bounces around a little bit. So it’s so interesting to me that sometimes in certain situations I feel much younger. You know, like I’m playing League of Legends with friends of mine, right. That feels like a younger version of myself.
00:42:52:48 – 00:43:19:09
Sam Leitermann
And then sometimes some kid asks me, like, advice about, like, choosing colleges, and all of a sudden I feel every, you know, every minute of my age, right? Yeah. Because I feel like I have to marshal all of those. All of those years to give good advice. And so it’s so fascinating to me how contextually I can feel different ages, contextually, I can feel like here I feel much older than this other position where actually I feel a lot younger.
00:43:19:09 – 00:43:23:53
Sam Leitermann
I feel, you know, I feel like I’m in a lot of a younger position and literature does that to me. Reading does that to me.
00:43:23:53 – 00:43:54:03
Agent Palmer
So I want to get back to the math for a second. As much as I we could probably talk books for the rest of the night, right? Much less the episode. I did want to ask, do you have a I don’t know what the language is, so I’m just, you know, going to, like, is there a piece, a section, an area, I guess, of math that you super enjoy?
00:43:54:16 – 00:44:06:57
Agent Palmer
And conversely, what do you not like? Because clearly you have to have like, I love this about math and I don’t like this. You cannot possibly like all of it.
00:44:07:02 – 00:44:31:19
Sam Leitermann
I certainly don’t like all of math. Okay. Let’s let’s let’s put that right out there. I am certainly not a huge fan of all of math. I think I have two answers for math that I enjoy. I was when I was pursuing a PhD before I, I made a different choice there. I’m an abstract algebra artist, which writ large is sort of this sense of, systems and the rules that they play by.
00:44:31:22 – 00:44:53:23
Sam Leitermann
Let’s put it that way. So you have these, these sets of objects, they might be numbers. They might not be, and you can impose certain rules about how they add together, how they multiply, whether they have to, have inverses, whether they have to have objects that multiply to make one, whether, you know, they have to have a zero where if you add it to an object, you get the same object, right?
00:44:53:27 – 00:45:13:00
Sam Leitermann
All of these rules and sort of abstract algebra is sort of the, the theory overlying all of these ideas. And, and to me it’s, it was, such a visual way of thinking about things. You know, I, I would, I would be on the bus. This was, a thing people might look at me like I was crazy.
00:45:13:00 – 00:45:34:56
Sam Leitermann
I’d be on the bus and I’d be thinking about sets, and I could see sort of the, the, the, the maps for the functions between these two sets and what they did. And, and sometimes they were very physical, like how they rotated objects or things like that. And so certainly that’s beautiful. And I loved that from a theoretical standpoint, I would say my, my current love, the love that I share with students often is statistics.
00:45:35:05 – 00:46:02:22
Sam Leitermann
I think we should talk to to everyone about statistics more often. And, I’m I’m a political junkie. Unfortunately, it’s probably not good for me, but I stay glued to FiveThirtyEight and the forecasting websites and the folks that are doing really fascinating work about how to understand the sort of important, powerful forces of our life in a statistical manner.
00:46:02:27 – 00:46:08:52
Sam Leitermann
And so I really enjoy seeing how that’s so useful. That’s certainly a piece.
00:46:09:04 – 00:46:12:35
Agent Palmer
And what is it that you dislike?
00:46:12:46 – 00:46:36:19
Sam Leitermann
Yeah. So, I am I am not very well spatially oriented. Let’s put it that way. Backing up my car, I’m really glad that backup cameras come standard on cars that you buy these days. And so geometry for me is really, really difficult. And so I can do it. Don’t get me wrong, I am I am perfectly capable of doing geometry, but it doesn’t come naturally.
00:46:36:19 – 00:46:50:31
Sam Leitermann
That involved a lot of work. And I still, you know, students off often say, like, I thought you just see this answer. And I’m like, no, I got to write this out, right? Like I got a diagram this out because I just don’t have a good I don’t have a good sense of it. And so that to me is difficult.
00:46:50:31 – 00:46:56:30
Sam Leitermann
And it was certainly the part of math that I did not, did not enjoy. And I still struggle with.
00:46:56:35 – 00:47:23:58
Agent Palmer
So I, I think I’m going to I’m going to make an assumption, right, that the audience, the listening audience can figure out a career path for a statistician. Right? I think we can all figure that out. Right? Whether it’s political forecasting or, you know, now, the big thing would be baseball. Now that or sports in general. Sports, I think I’d say sports in general.
00:47:23:58 – 00:47:45:54
Agent Palmer
Now that betting is legal across the this country as it was ever elsewhere. But abstract algebra was, ignoring the idea of becoming a professor. Okay. What is a career path had you continue down that road?
00:47:46:02 – 00:48:06:53
Sam Leitermann
Yeah, it’s a good it’s a good question. So, so there are a lot of them and, and I think that it’s really fascinating to consider what folks, you know, when when you leave academia, people sometimes speak of you as if you’re dead, like, they, they went to the industry. This is a common phrase that people use, but there’s some really fascinating work you can do.
00:48:06:53 – 00:48:23:04
Sam Leitermann
So, so part of abstract algebra has to do with like, rotations of symmetry. So what ways can you rotate an object and what does that do to the the points of the object. You know, like how does that reoriented in space?
00:48:23:11 – 00:48:23:50
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:48:23:54 – 00:48:46:36
Sam Leitermann
So you imagine when you’re thinking about robotics and you’re thinking about like engineering in, in factories and you want to think about efficient movement of robotic arms and how you might move those objects through, you know, a process or a system. You might think that someone that really understands the mathematics of that would be really helpful. And certainly that’s a that’s a type of career.
00:48:46:41 – 00:49:08:54
Sam Leitermann
There’s, folks that work in crystallography, which again, has this like sort of symmetry idea here. If you’re looking at crystals or you’re trying to create like crystalline structures, there’s a lot of symmetry that goes on there. The most fascinating person, and this is, this is maybe my my last thought here is, I met someone when I was working on the Syracuse University master plan.
00:49:08:59 – 00:49:35:05
Sam Leitermann
So they were replanning the campus at Syracuse when I was a graduate student there. And the guy that led that team was, kind of combination abstract algebra, graph theorist. And he did this incredible analytical work about space, and he asked these sorts of questions. He sent this survey out to the whole community, and he said, okay, click on a couple places on campus that you think are really important.
00:49:35:18 – 00:49:57:39
Sam Leitermann
You go very often and then map the routes that you take between those places. And then he did this whole analysis about kind of the most important aspects of campus and where they were, and how people got from place to place. And it was fascinating and was really helpful in a re-imagining, like, what would you where would you put buildings if you got to move them?
00:49:57:39 – 00:50:07:26
Sam Leitermann
Where would you build new buildings? If you if you had to build new buildings? And that was fascinating. So there’s lots of applied work that you actually can do here. Okay. If you’re, if you’re imaginative about it.
00:50:07:31 – 00:50:32:52
Agent Palmer
All right, I, I it’s one of the things that I find very interesting about academia in general is that I think you’re right. I think the more people I talked to in academia, the more you realize that the ivy covered walls are not just around the Ivy League. Right there is very much a well, you’re on tenure track, right?
00:50:32:52 – 00:51:00:00
Agent Palmer
Like, I, I, you know, and not to completely self-promote, but if you listen to the story that the token professor talks about during that episode where he eventually leaves to start a brand new thing, he was an outcast, like he absolutely was. And and he stayed, you know? Yeah, it’s it’s a different form of higher education. But he stayed in higher education and he’s still an out cast.
00:51:00:00 – 00:51:26:08
Agent Palmer
Right. Like it is amazing to me that that exists. And and here I am thinking like there was a time I wanted to be a teacher. And the more I talk to people, the more I think, yeah, maybe not. And and and and I want to say this. We do need good teachers. We need more good teachers.
00:51:26:13 – 00:51:55:10
Agent Palmer
Probably because at some point, at some point, I don’t maybe this is wishful thinking. At some point someone will actually figure out, yeah, maybe 50 students to a teacher. Not a good idea, right? Like at some point somebody’s going to figure that out. I don’t know how it happens, but in in that world where that’s a fact, we need more teachers because you you’re not just going to be like, all right, well, I’ll just hire four, you know, four times as many.
00:51:55:24 – 00:52:23:19
Agent Palmer
Like, they’re just not going to exist. And teachers, I guess, like politicians, like a good one is rare. Like, there’s there’s plenty of people that are not. They’re not bad people. Okay? I don’t want to go in that road, but they’re not great at the job. They just feel it’s easy. And I, I went to high school with a lot of those current teachers.
00:52:23:24 – 00:52:46:22
Agent Palmer
I went to high school with a lot of people that were like, I’ll just be a teacher like you, Sam. I could tell, like, you’re passionate about it. You want people to learn, but to me, the former classmates I had that are like, yeah, I’ll just be a teacher. That’s not somebody who’s inspired. It’s not somebody who’s inspiring the next generation.
00:52:46:27 – 00:53:08:11
Agent Palmer
And I, you know, I guess I’ll run for Congress is not somebody who’s actually going to change the world, right? Like so we do need those things. But like, I want to get back to what you do in your spare time, because in your spare time, you are also teaching aside from reading and, you know, family stuff.
00:53:08:16 – 00:53:31:34
Agent Palmer
And you’re teaching on Twitch to the general populace. I don’t I don’t know what, you know, whatever the Twitch audience happens to be. So I want to ask, where does that come from? Because, like, you could have just been like, I want to help people. I’ll offer tutoring, you know, or, you know, whatever, you know, to do it on a public forum.
00:53:31:38 – 00:53:35:03
Agent Palmer
Is it different? I don’t know, that’s a different idea.
00:53:35:07 – 00:53:55:55
Sam Leitermann
Yeah, it so it came from two places. One of which, at least is very self centered, which is, the, the person I do it with, John is a really good friend who I felt like I didn’t see enough. So so half of the math prof. Story is all about friendship, right? It’s about the fact that I wanted to hang out with John, and I wanted an excuse to do so.
00:53:56:06 – 00:54:28:12
Sam Leitermann
And a and a rather regular excuse. Right. And so I proposed why don’t we start a Twitch channel where we’re going to talk about math? Like, why don’t we just talk about math and play video games? Because everyone likes playing video games, but talk about math. And and John was down for it pretty quickly. And sort of my pitch was when I got at college, most of the people that I got had already decided maybe similar to you, whether or not they were math people, they had made a choice, or maybe that choice had been made for them.
00:54:28:12 – 00:54:57:37
Sam Leitermann
I don’t want to put that agency entirely in their hands. Sure that either math was their thing or it wasn’t, and that is so unfortunate to me. It cuts off so much of the world from you. And so sort of the pitch was, can we can we bring it back? Can we convince you, at least for, you know, 30 minutes during a Twitch stream that you can understand this and that you might want to understand this?
00:54:57:50 – 00:55:22:38
Sam Leitermann
And so not only not only were we really working very hard to, to make it understandable, but to pick good problems that folks might care about. So, you know, we talked about gerrymandering. We talked about ELO, about the way that video games rank your level of skill, because those were problems that folks might actually think meant something to them.
00:55:22:43 – 00:55:34:49
Sam Leitermann
And if we could convince them that not only did they mean something to them, but they also understood it, we might break through that shell of, hey, math isn’t for me, and get a little bit further down that path.
00:55:34:54 – 00:56:03:18
Agent Palmer
I feel like this might be too. Actually, I don’t think this is too much. It’s a noble effort, right? Like, because because I think that one of the things about, Twitch, which is the same as YouTube and blogging or podcasting or anything, is you can’t measure impact, you can measure engagement. There’s somebody in your chat that’s like, oh, thank you, I get it.
00:56:03:23 – 00:56:26:15
Agent Palmer
But you’re probably going to reach more people who are sitting there like, and the light bulb goes off, they nod their head and then they go, okay, I got that. And you just can’t judge that impact because we have no way of doing that, right? Like, you and I could be doing this live in front of an audience, and we still wouldn’t know who in the audience we reached.
00:56:26:24 – 00:56:51:26
Agent Palmer
That’s going to go back and either try and discover a little bit more math, or maybe going to read based on our conversation. You know, you can’t judge that. So how is that for you? Because you when you’re in the classroom, you can you don’t actually know, but you can kind of see it in the body language because there’s not 100,000 people there.
00:56:51:31 – 00:56:56:58
Agent Palmer
Is it easy or harder, to, to kind of teach into that vacuum?
00:56:56:58 – 00:57:21:23
Sam Leitermann
It’s it’s in some ways freeing because you can just present and do the best you can. And right, there’s this level of anxiety in, in teaching to a group of real physical people whose expressions you can read, where you realize like, oh, no one understands, right? And that level exact anxiety does not happen in in Twitch chat unless someone like chats and says, hey, I don’t get what’s going on.
00:57:21:23 – 00:57:42:59
Sam Leitermann
And then we have a conversation. But most of the time you don’t get that. So in some ways it’s freeing, right? Like, you know that you’re presenting and you’re going to be hopeful and it might have an impact or it it might not. On the other hand, getting good feedback about like, was this was this understandable or not is really hard.
00:57:43:04 – 00:58:06:54
Sam Leitermann
And so, for some what that’s like reaching out to those folks that we do know that are in chat and getting a little bit of like, oh, did you understand that? And getting some of that feedback and some of that’s just hope, right? I’m an expert and I’m hoping I’m making things understandable. And also, I’m well aware that when I talk about the mathematics of gerrymandering, you might not understand like 50% of what I say.
00:58:06:58 – 00:58:24:45
Sam Leitermann
But if you do understand the beginning, 50%, and you read a New York Times article about gerrymandering, like five weeks later, you might remember Sam said this thing, and that’s enough for me. It’s enough for me that that’s what you remember, and that’s what you recall and that that was useful to you and that helped you understand.
00:58:24:59 – 00:58:52:19
Agent Palmer
I think everybody needs that inkling, right. Like because that’s where it starts. Whether it’s high school, higher education or just like a conversation you heard or a, you know, a lecture you attend that first 50%, that’s the hook. Because if you understand it, when it pops up in your real life in some way, you go, oh, wait, I want to know more, right?
00:58:52:19 – 00:58:57:57
Agent Palmer
Like you immediately go, yes, give me more of that. I want to understand that.
00:58:57:57 – 00:59:28:08
Sam Leitermann
Better or and right, you absolutely do that. And I think the other thing you do, and this is, this is actually a really important goal for me, and it’s something that we’ve done a little bit on the math process that I want to do more is you equip people to ask the question, right? Unfortunately, a lot of times on on Facebook or Twitter or TikTok or even in instead of news sources, you know, this this number floats across your page and you have no clue whether or not it’s legitimate.
00:59:28:21 – 00:59:46:30
Sam Leitermann
You just don’t know, and you don’t know whether it’s being phrased in a certain way. But if I can do enough to convince you of, they might not be telling you the truth. Or at least they might be telling you the truth in the way that they want you to hear the truth. You start to ask that question, and that’s when you do that extra research right?
00:59:46:45 – 01:00:12:46
Sam Leitermann
You do that extra research to say, hey, was was it legit when they said that 50% of people believed blah, blah, blah, or or is it really a little more complex? And they’re really just trying to make a narrative point. And, and that’s the other piece is not only engage that interest, but engage that sense of like healthy skepticism, some that makes, you know, like, this is maybe pie in the sky, but like, makes healthy democracy work, right?
01:00:12:46 – 01:00:39:36
Sam Leitermann
Like healthy society works when people ask questions and, and and try to understand for themselves what they’re being presented. And that’s absolutely a goal, that that I’ve had for a long time because I think it’s so important and it’s so missing in our conversation, particularly about like mathematical literacy.
01:00:39:40 – 01:01:05:03
Agent Palmer
I love the fact that Sam is fighting against the stigma that math isn’t for me, because despite all of the blubbering about math, that you either get it or you don’t. That I said you can learn how it is applicable or even beneficial to your life in the same way that one of the underlying themes to this podcast, not just this episode, but this podcast as a whole, has been that everybody should read.
01:01:05:14 – 01:01:28:12
Agent Palmer
And again, when it comes to reading, you will find the argument that reading just isn’t for me. But like math, reading is for everyone. But you have to make the effort if it doesn’t come naturally, if you don’t make the effort, then of course you’ll never understand math and then you’ll never understand physics, and then you’ll never understand the fabric of the universe.
01:01:28:12 – 01:01:51:46
Agent Palmer
But perhaps it’s just as simple as understanding. Math is understanding how the polling that happens before elections works. It’s understanding how Amazon Web Services comes up with those win percentages that now show up in every sport. You don’t just have to take the computer’s word for it. You can find out how the computer or the mathematician behind the computer arrived at that number.
01:01:51:50 – 01:02:16:40
Agent Palmer
And again, you can make yourself a reader. Plus, as Sam and I discussed, a book is a book is a book. Just because you’re almost 40 doesn’t mean you can’t read a young adult book. And just because you’re a teenager doesn’t mean you can’t read something that isn’t expand, learn, and then keep on education. In or out of the classroom should be a lifelong passion.
01:02:16:45 – 01:02:39:19
Agent Palmer
It is for me. It is for Sam. How can we help foster learning as a lifelong passion for you? Let us know. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 57. As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion.
01:02:39:28 – 01:03:02:59
Agent Palmer
You can tweet me at Agent Palmer, my guest, Sam Leitermann at Sam Leitermann, that’s Sam, literary man. And and this show at the Palmer Files. You can watch Sam along with John on Twitch as the math props at Twitch.tv. Slash the math profs email can be sent to this show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember, you’re home for all things.
01:03:02:59 – 01:03:10:04
Agent Palmer
Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
01:03:10:08 – 01:03:17:34
Unknown
You.
01:03:17:39 – 01:03:23:44
Unknown
See?
01:03:23:48 – 01:03:47:32
Unknown
You.
01:03:47:37 – 01:03:51:20
Unknown
See?
01:03:51:25 – 01:03:54:14
Agent Palmer
All right. Sam, do you have one final question for me? Yeah.
01:03:54:14 – 01:04:13:09
Sam Leitermann
So this is one of my favorite questions. And it. And it really goes back to our reading. I love to ask people this question. If you could erase your brain of the memory of one book so that you could read it again for the first time, you got to you got to re-experience in all of its glory one book.
01:04:13:09 – 01:04:17:44
Sam Leitermann
What would it be? And and like why, what what would that that experience be for you?
01:04:17:44 – 01:04:42:10
Agent Palmer
The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker. And it’s the reason that while I have read some of his stuff, I reread Galilee so I could write about it. I re read we’ve World and The Thief of All Ways, and I plan on rereading a few other things, and I read the sequel to it, Evansville for the blog right.
01:04:42:15 – 01:05:18:28
Agent Palmer
But The Great and Secret Show is one of those books that I would love to erase my mind and read again for the first time. For the same reason. I don’t know if I want to reread it, because there is such a I have such a reverence for that book, because for a fantasy book to go that heavy in philosophy without losing me, and still have the elements of like maybe magic, hyper fantasy and realism all kind of mashed into one.
01:05:18:33 – 01:05:45:08
Agent Palmer
It just. And maybe it was the time. Maybe it was when I, I mean, look, I will be the first to admit some of these things are a product of you. A book is only is a book is never a one way street. So where you are matters a great deal into where you are as far as enjoyment of that book, or understanding or compassion for the characters.
01:05:45:13 – 01:06:13:04
Agent Palmer
But, I’ve been searching for a very long time. I think I’ve always been searching, and so the great and secret show I read at a time when I was definitely looking for something more, and that’s a book that talks about there’s something more. Is there something more? What is there? And the metaphysical parts of that book I still remember right.
01:06:13:09 – 01:06:37:24
Agent Palmer
But I don’t want to just reread them. I think I would want to and, you know, maybe I’ll change my mind because I do hold it in such high regard, like, will it hold up after? I don’t know, I read it a decade ago. Does it still mean something to me as a person who is still searching? I don’t know, but that’s the book that bar none.
01:06:37:29 – 01:06:42:08
Agent Palmer
That’s the one I would want to go back and experience for the first time.
01:06:42:13 – 01:06:44:39
Sam Leitermann
That is, incredible.
01:06:44:39 – 01:06:46:32
Agent Palmer
And have you read that book, by the way?
01:06:46:36 – 01:06:48:33
Sam Leitermann
I have not. It’s on my list now. Okay.
01:06:48:33 – 01:07:18:00
Agent Palmer
Yeah, it is. So when I come to Barker, I come to Barker through a book called Galilee, which is a fantasy through and through. Okay, it’s Barker fantasy, but it’s fantasy. It’s not horror. It’s not what people immediately think of. And I go from Galilee to weave world, which is fantasy, with a bit more of the horror that you expect from the guy who did Hellraiser.
01:07:18:00 – 01:07:47:43
Agent Palmer
But it’s not Hellraiser. And then I read damnation Game, which is a, you know, a little bit more of the horror aspect. Then I ended up, I don’t know how I ended up with the Great and Secret show. Right? It’s just I enjoyed reading his stuff and I was like, well, I don’t want to quite go into like The Books of Blood, which was a book I owned and was ready to read, and a roommate of mine in college took it and I never saw it again.
01:07:47:48 – 01:08:13:57
Agent Palmer
So he either still has it or he has lost it. Which is fine. I now have a hardcover version, thanks to that lot. But but the great and secret show just ends up being one of those books. Like. Oh, well, I’ve liked his other stuff. This doesn’t seem like the horror, because I’m not a really big horror guy, and I just picked it up and it was just kind of like, wow, right?
01:08:13:57 – 01:08:40:31
Agent Palmer
And then I’ve also read Cold Heart Canyon, which I’m very excited to reread. It’s just such a dense book, but it happens. So fast, I feel like I missed pieces the Great and Secret Show. You might read it fast, but you don’t experience it fast, which might be the reason for my answer, right? Like, and it’s so super contradictory for the same author.
01:08:40:31 – 01:09:02:19
Agent Palmer
I’m like, yeah, I want to reread Dark Canyon for everything I missed, but I don’t want to reread the Great and Secret show again, because, like, I don’t want to know what it will change of my perception of me loving that book, even though both of those books, for the most part, are fantasy, a little metaphysical, maybe a little elements of horror in there.
01:09:02:23 – 01:09:10:29
Agent Palmer
So. So for me, I that’s the one. But I’m going to turn it on you, of course. So what is yours?
01:09:10:34 – 01:09:35:21
Sam Leitermann
It’s a it’s a great question. And Dune is the book that sort of pops like front of mind. And it’s going to be either, you know, The Great Gatsby, I, I have a hard time deciding between the two of them. Very two very different books, but I think particularly so I read I read The Great Gatsby when I lived, on Long Island in a Gold Coast mansion.
01:09:35:21 – 01:09:56:17
Sam Leitermann
Actually, that was the first college that I attended, was housed in one, and it was just the perfect evocative book for the for the perfect, evocative moment. I, I really I really, aligned with sort of your, your feelings there of like, it was the right book at the right moment for the right person. Right. That’s where I was.
01:09:56:22 – 01:10:14:39
Sam Leitermann
And and those, those intense feelings of loneliness that, that exist in that book, really at that moment of my life rang true to me. And and still do, but in very different ways. So, so so. No, I’ll firm up my answer. I think The Great Gatsby would be the book that I would choose not to know.
01:10:14:41 – 01:10:33:21
Sam Leitermann
I will say I got a little bit of a taste of this experience, so I can I can report a little bit from the other side. I’m married to someone who is not from the US, and so the US cannon was not part of her childhood experiences. And so when we were first dating, I read The Great Gatsby with her.
01:10:33:26 – 01:10:53:56
Sam Leitermann
Okay. And so I got to experience as a person ask all the questions about a book that I love that I could tell you, you know, page by page, because she didn’t have any of the context that I have and any and that was a really fun experience. I will say that was the best way to reread that book, was with a person who hadn’t read it before.
01:10:54:11 – 01:10:56:29
Agent Palmer
I’m going to have to consider that. Wow.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).