  Stream it from here: It is important to think “What is the big goal that I am trying to do?” – Jouko Väänänen How often should you apply for grants? How much time are you supposed to use on grant applications? What is the single most important thing you need to have in order […]

Bats and Seahorses

Secrets to successful career: Interview with Vice-Rector Jouko Väänänen

Mauritius-born New Zealandian-Indian artist Nandita Kumar is all over the place – in a good way. She is on a quest to find connections between art, science and technology through her own art as well as community projects to shift consciousness of people – in her own words. I met Nandita at the exhibition opening of ARS17 in […]

Self-exploration in Constantly Changing Environment – Interview with Nandita Kumar

  Stream it from here: Download mp3 from here. In this episode I have the honour of introducing you to one of the giants of unsupervised machine learning and more generally of mathematics applied to statistical algorithms, Professor Emeritus Erkki Oja. I met Erkki met an artificial intelligence meetup in Helsinki

How to aim for the top and other secrets for success in science: an interview with Professor Emeritus Erkki Oja

Does playing music to a not-yet-born child in the womb have a positive effect on the brain’s development? Yes, says Mari Tervaniemi, a brain research scientist who was one of the pioneers in the cognitive science of music perception when the field started in the 1980’s. She is still working in that area. On the […]

How Does Music Influence Brain? Interview with Cognitive Scientist of Music Perception Mari Tervaniemi

I wrote previously about Markus Rissanen when I still didn’t know him personally. Markus is a professional artist who has been fascinated by tilings and their mathematical properties such as symmetries and regularities ever since he was very young. As explained in my previous post, Markus eventually solved the problem of generalising some quasiperiodic properties […]

Art vs. Mathematics and How to Get Something from Nothing: An interview with Markus Rissanen

For no less than 25 years out of his career, Olli Martio (born 1941) was a chair of one of the mathematics departments in Finland: at the universities of Jyväskylä and Helsinki. He retired seven years ago, but he hasn’t stopped working nor making ground breaking progress in mathematics. For the last six years he […]

How to Turn 5 Seconds a Year into Unlimited Source of Motivation: An interview with Professor Emeritus Olli Martio

Stream it from here: Download it from here My parents wanted me to be a dentist In this episode I interview Ewa Wilczynski. 

Art as sanity coping and how to follow your passion: An interview with Ewa Wilczynski

How did the invention of fire accelerate the evolution of language? Would extraterrestrial aliens have similar mathematics as us? How mathematical thinking is possibly augmented by the same mechanisms as those that allow us to talk about time spatially? What did Rafael learn from his mentors Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela? How travelling partially inspired him to become a scientist?..........

Understanding Abstract Thinking: An Interview with Rafael Núñez

Stream it from here: Download the mp3 file by right-clicking here. Bella Volen is a Bulgarian born artist based in Vienna, Austria. She creates amazing art installations through painting on virtually everything: canvas, humans, balloons, guitars, walls, … the list is endless. Here are some of my favourites: For more of Bella’s art, recent news and […]

How to be the Artist You Want: An Interview with Bella Volen

Mainly interviews with scientists and artists about success in creative life.