Steven Strogatz is the Susan and Barton Winokur Distinguished Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Mathematics at Cornell University. He is the author of Sync, The Joy of x, and Infinite Powers, which was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he is one of the world’s most highly cited mathematicians and a frequent contributor to The New York Times and The New Yorker. He is also a regular guest on Radiolab, Science Friday, and Veritasium. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

Alex Townsend is an associate professor of mathematics at Cornell University and a leading researcher in numerical linear algebra, scientific computing, and scientific artificial intelligence. He has received major international prizes in numerical analysis and linear algebra, including the Leslie Fox Prize and SIAM awards in both Linear Algebra and Computational Science and Engineering. An award-winning teacher, he is a recipient of Cornell University’s Stephen H. Weiss Junior Fellowship for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He lives in Ithaca, New York.