Ideas

Comedian Martha Chaves stands by this statement and many agree. Canada produces legendary comedians and comic actors who excel on the world stage. So why is Canada not known for comedy? Does it have something to do with our proximity to the U.S., the way there are so many Scottish comedians performing in England? A panel of three comics discuss Canadian comedy and what Canada's profile would be on a dating app. This conversation is part of the Provocations-IDEAS festival.

Comedians in this episode:

Debra McGrath is a comedian, writer, and director whose comedy bona fides (yes, bona fides — this is IDEAS) began with Second City Improv, and is best-known for roles in Little Mosque on the Prairie, Seven Little Monsters and Paradise Falls.

Stewart Reynolds (aka Brittlestar) is a Stratford, Ontario-based comedian. His work has brought him to the White House, and to meeting the Prime Minister. And of late, he’s become the bestselling author of the book: The Subtle Art of Resistance: Lessons From Cats For Surviving Fascism.

Martha Chaves has made many TV appearances including Just for Laughs, We’re Funny That Way Festival, and the Winnipeg Comedy Festival — and she’s often been heard on CBC's Laugh Out Loud, The Debaters, Because News — and now IDEAS!

From the medicine wheel to the building blocks of DNA, the number four has represented structure and stability. But four is also a troublemaker: a portal to realms like the fourth dimension. Our series, The Greatest Numbers of All Time explores how the number four helps us understand the world — both by making the rules, and by breaking them.

More in the series:

Listen to The Curse of 13
Listen to 12 is Sublime
Listen to 27 Club Lore
Listen to The 33,000 Horsepower Gamechanger

Guests in this episode:

Joyce Perreault is an Ojibway Anishinaabe children's book author and elementary school teacher at Donald Ahmo School in Crane River, MB.

Brian Katz is a composer, instrumentalist, improviser, and guitar instructor at University of Toronto and York University.

Lauren Fink is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at McMaster University.

Alex Fisher is a professor of musicology and area coordinator for early music at the University of British Columbia.

Tyrone Ghaswala is an assistant professor teaching stream with the Centre for Education and Computing (CEMC) and an adjunct professor in the Pure Mathematics department at the University of Waterloo.

Wenran Jiang is the founding director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta.

Stephan Reuter is an associate professor for plasma physics and spectroscopy at the Engineering Physics Department of Polytechnique Montréal

Sarah Hart is professor emerita of mathematics at Birkbeck College and author of "Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections between Mathematics and Literature."

There is nothing random about featuring 33,000 in our number series. It's very powerful. So much so, that the number put millions of horses out of work. Inventor James Watt used “33,000 foot-pounds a minute" to measure the capabilities of a horse when trying to market his new and improved steam engine. The engine was a big success, saving horses from the drudgery of manual labour. Now, a similar process is underway with artificial intelligence — but are we the horses, or the steam engine? *This episode is part of our series, The Greatest Numbers of All Time.

For more in the series:
Listen to The Curse of 13
Listen to 12 is Sublime
Listen to 27 Club Lore

Guest in this episode:

Stephanie Dick is a historian of mathematics, technology, computing, and AI, and an assistant professor at Simon Fraser University.

Twenty-seven can be a pivotal and tumultuous age. It’s held up as the year of peak performance in many sports and it's also seen as a cursed age for pop and rock stars, exemplified by the so-called 27 Club. Artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, all died at 27. As part of our series, The Greatest Numbers of All Time, IDEAS producer Chris Wodskou makes the case for a number that may not stick out in your mind but is more significant than you think.

More episodes in this series:

Listen to 12 is Sublime
Listen to The Curse of 13
Listen to The 33,000 Horsepower Gamechanger

Guests in this podcast:

David Awosoga is a PhD student in Statistics at University of Waterloo and sports performance data analyst.

Alan Cross is a music historian, broadcaster, and host of The Ongoing History of New Music podcast

Dianna Kenny is a professor emerita of psychology and music at University of Sydney and psychotherapist in private practice.

Michael Owen is a retired clinical psychologist and author of The 27 Club.

Maria Westerstahl is senior lecturer at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Complete. Whole. Divine order. That's just the start of what makes the humble dozen extraordinary. It's one of only two numbers ever discovered in mathematics to be “sublime.” Twelve makes a number of appearances in pop culture, in religion, in non-fiction, everything from the 12 days of Christmas to the 12 people it takes to form a criminal jury. Still need convincing of 12’s perfection and indispensability? Check your watch.

More episodes in our series, The Greatest Numbers of All Time:

Listen to The Curse of 13
Listen to 27 Club Lore
Listen to The 33,000 Horsepower Gamechanger

Guests in this episode:

Glen Van Brummelen is a professor of mathematical sciences at Trinity Western University.

Ainsley Hawthorn is a cultural historian and nonfiction writer. She has a PhD in Near Eastern Civilizations from Yale University.