Rachel Riley, Countdown: do maths, not war

*BEEP* Women Tech Charge from the evening's. No. Women Tech Charge from the evening's standard. Oh, sorry. *laughs* *singing* Don't worry, there are no contract. *singing* I'm the mathematician, not the English person, I can't even talk. Women Tech Charge from the evening's standard is back. Was that too loud? *outro music* Hi, I'm Anne-Marie Maffadon and welcome to series two of Women Tech Charge. This season we're talking to amazing women doing incredible things in science and tech. And we're engineering animates and all the stemms because all of them are in there together. *outro music* And I said, "Dad, I don't like it out there." He said, "No worries, too." He put the cart back in the truck and head home, where you go back out and you just try and go quicker and when they're gonna bump you, you're gonna bump the back twice as hard. *laughs* Regarding the Mandalorian, it's a little bit of old school and it's a little bit of new school. I think that's where visual effects really succeed. How does one go about getting a watch named after them? Why Microsoft? Magic and flea. *outro music* It's show time. *outro music* Let's start with a bang or a pass of dough blame. *outro music* Rachel Riley is here. *outro music* She's a presenter and mathematician and occasional dancer and is soon to be mum. Yeah, very occasional dance of these days. I can't get close to the plasha. He's like, "Now you finally got the posture because your body's supposed to be touching." *laughs* That's still a part of her. Nailed it. *outro music* But I'd say you're a Rachel. Yeah. This is my thing. I don't claim to be a woman in tech. I just claim to be a matthewsiest. I've got a master's in matthews. Well more than a deezy I said, if you did not. I tried and you know, spread maths positivity. Yes. But I don't fit into the box of artists. I'm not working in tech and I don't claim to be. And that is the job. If someone says, "What do you do?" "What's the furt?" Do you say, "I Rachel?" "I Rachel." *laughs* Should you say, "I Rachel?" Well, it eats one of those things that was really embarrassing. You know, when you go to America and you have to tick, you know, "What's your occupation?" Yeah. For ages TV presenter was just, "Am I? Is that a real thing?" But I just, I go with it now. Oh, I've got one bone to pick with you. Oh yeah, that would say. So apparently you once described your job on countdown as the one call matthewp around. That was like, when I was 22. You were young and foolish. I was 22 and I went from university to clothes budget. Do you get the spare from your clothes budget? They're very stiffer. Spare, is this me? Yeah, use it or leave it. Especially now, more material. Why did you apply? I always like puzzles. That's what I liked about maths. So I always enjoyed the countdown game. I used to play against my little brother. You know, it's four o'clock with 15 to one. Four 30 was countdown. And then I might do a little bit of homework later, maybe. So I just liked it and I just applied. On the off chance, it was, you know, I was at the time, all of these job applications were kind of, were absolute tomes. When you were wet as a team, when you overcome adversity, when you've done this, that the other. And it was 50 words in a photo for a countdown. Yeah. Why would you be good to stand out? Okay. And that was written. That was, yeah. That was my first written thing after you did 50 words. 50 words. 50 I could do. My thing was always, 300 words or less, I'm okay. But beyond that, there's feeling like work. So you did the 50 words and then you auditioned. Did you have one audition? Did you have five? They could be into the ITV studios on the bank, then. And they, I think they interviewed 100 people. We sat in a room and had a chat with two producers. And they gave me a bunch of countdown numbers puzzles, whilst they sat and stared at you. And it was 2008, so they had a CD player and they pressed play. And the countdown music would play. And then after a couple of rounds. When people stare at you when you do Matt, it's quite, I mean, people, they feel like dance monkey dance. That's always there. People always were like, you're a match genius. What's the speed of two times? And I'm like, oh, wow. This is not how I do my maths. Yeah, exactly. And there's a maths phase. And there's a reason for that. It's just putting people under pressure. Yeah. It's not what maths is about. After a couple of countdown rounds with them staring at me, the actual CD player broke. So then they still had a couple more. Did they start to question? They started telling me numbers. As he was going, about 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds. And when you're thinking in numbers and someone shouting numbers at you, it's just like, patting your head and rubbing your tummy. Yeah. And obviously it went all right, because then they got back for a screen test. So they took six of us up for screen tests, which was like a three hour thing in the studio in Leeds. And I got the job. Who's the first person you told? Well, I was supposed to hear, I think, maybe the Friday or over the weekend. And every time my phone went, my mum would be like, "Oh, look at me and stare at me." And it's just, you know, Shurana or whatever. You're making this last one. And then, yeah, by Monday, I hadn't heard. And I was like, well, it's obviously not going to happen. So by the time I did get the call, my mum was like, "Tishing up dinner and didn't pay any attention." So I went in the other room to the call. I was like, "Okay." And I walked back into the kitchen just like holding my phone, like, "What's just happened?" And my mum, she didn't notice for like, good, you know, 30 seconds. And she turned around and she was like, "Well, she's so funny, especially to start with, because I had to keep it quiet for a little while." Okay. And I'd be like, "I'd been the car if she'd like, get out and she'd be in the butcher's buying something." And you could see her having a chat with the butcher and then the guys, I'd head turning to the car and you're like, "Sing King in like she's told someone else." What was the weirdest or what was the strangest person that was like, "Oh my gosh, I've just seen you on Channel 4." One day, it was out by accident somehow. And the papers were on my doorstep, which was my parents doorstep, because I was obviously living at home. And then I was in all the papers and I was thinking, "Is everyone going to recognise me now? I'm famous now." And I made up. And he realised it's not like that at all. So he can be on count down for ages and people soon don't know him, which is great. But I've had contrast that with, I did one thing for Manchester United, which hadn't even been broadcast, but they were just promoting the advert for it. And I was getting stopped to old traffic. Oh my god, that's so cool. My dad quote unquote said, "I finally made it." I get like Asian tourists that come over to old traffic, like they do the pilgrimage, they recognise me from Manchester, from in Manu TV. That's insane, more than count down. Or eight out of ten cats. Yeah, I mean that's the thing that most people want to chat about. Just, you know, person on the street. That's becoming. Yeah. Is that as fun as it looks to record? Yeah, it's great. Is it more fun than it looks to record? Well it's. I'm a massive copy fan. Yeah, most of it gets cast. Exactly. Most of it's career-ending stuff. There's probably some editors that are making a few crit on the side with a few, you know. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you ever. If someone said you had to choose, would you choose eight out of ten over main count down? I would probably, to be honest, choose count down, because I get to do more numbers games on count down. And then there's numbers. There are. There's two per shot. You have to do all this for. You have to do most of the number work on eight out of ten. Yeah. I have to say. I mean, I love both. To be honest, they're completely different jobs. They're different production teams. They're just in the same studio. And I love working on both. But, I mean, I've done count down almost 11 years now. Yeah. And the production team are. They're like family. And we have a good giggle. They're the producers from Blackpool, the rudist cleverest man you'll ever meet. Yeah. And he's like my big brother or something. Let's dive into the maths. Let's. Because I like maths. I also did it at Oxford as well. And you were at Aurel. Which was the. It was a bit of a. I don't know if it's in posh college. No, it was known as Lich Invertecom as the friendly college. Because I went to Cambridge and didn't like it at all. And I was really put off. And they were. I found them really pretentious and I just didn't like it. So I thought Oxford would be the same. And then Mum said, "Oh, you know, how about we do this?" And she picked it because it was called the friendly college. And it was right in the middle of town. That's how it ended up there. It is right outside the shops. Right in the middle of the shops. Right next to Jigsaw. I don't know if Jigsaw's still there. And Pizza Hut is on that course as well. Cover market. And the cover market. All of it is there. We did have our fair share of Kabab fans in. In. Equalisticity. Yes, it was clear. Although I never would eat from Kabab fans. Because they don't have running water. I know if anyone that runs a Kabab fan. I don't know. Back in the day, 19 years old, chips and cheese. I thought I had too much. You two said like, "When did you wash your hands?" I don't want to eat your food. So after that, you went off to Deutsche, which I didn't realise until I got my baby back. I just did an internship there for a summer. So I was on a Deutsche Bank prop desk. Can you explain prop trading to anyone who might not know what that is? It's a trading desk, but it was to benefit the bank. So the money was actually Deutsche Bank's money. So it wasn't. That was an investing money for Deutsche Bank. And trading for Deutsche Bank. And they spun off into a hedge fund. So it's basically a hedge fund internally for Deutsche Bank. So proper shot for proprietary. Thank you very much. That's a round that one. And that off. So I was there just for a couple of months trying out investment banking, which was 2007, which was the time when the market's first crashed. This is radical action across the system. The restructuring of banks under the conditions set down. We are not seeking to take public control of these institutions. Where's the money from? I'll get back safe. (upbeat music) So the first half of the summer, everyone was helping and everyone was swanning in. - The champagne was flowing. - Yeah, and then the second half of the summer. - The sky went dark. - It did. I mean, there was no time to teach us anything because the sky was falling in. - Yeah. - And they, you know, it was unprecedented. And I thought, this isn't for me. (laughing) I just didn't appeal to me that we weren't making anything. I didn't feel like we were doing anything. I thought we were just, someone was winning and someone was losing. And I tried it and it wasn't for me. (upbeat music) - I found it really difficult trying to find and apply Maths job out of uni. I was going to, I mean, the people that came to Oxford to try and recruit you with people with money. So it was lawyers, it was management consultants. And that was pretty much it that was coming for the mathematicians. So I'd go out and I-- - It was like that and there was the tap on the shoulder. - I didn't get a tap on the shoulder. - I did go to, I think, you know, at the NEC, there's a huge science careers fair. And I'd go there and I'd say to companies about to finish four years at Oxford. I've done Maths mostly applied. What would I be able to do in your company? And they didn't have a clue at the time. - Oh, really? - I think there's a kind of a disjoint between what universities teach and what companies need or what they know you're learning. They're like, you probably have to load, of course, is on fluids. I'm like half my degrees on fluids. - Yeah. - So I was looking at going back into education to do something that would get me in there. - That's a degree. - But in the meantime, got our job as a data analysis. At startup company, really entrepreneurial, small, really bright people. I was ultimately there two months before the call. - For countdown. - To go up today. Is that frustrates me a little bit? - That I left for countdown. - No. - No, no, no, my, that's great. I mean, do you? - No. - It frustrates me a little bit that with a masters in Maths that people still didn't, like accounting was what was thrown back in there. - Yeah, it frustrated me as well. I think Maths kind of can get a little bit forgotten. Even within STEM. It's quite easy. You need Maths for the rest of the STEM. But Mathematicians, I think they're probably an undue resource. A lot of people, they do it because they love it. And they actually do want to use their degrees afterwards. But the opportunities, not necessarily. I think you have to really look for them. And out of six of us that were doing Math at the time, one boy went and used his, his applied Maths. And he went to AWE at the time, at the time, at the time weapons establishment. So that was, you know, for some, for some, exactly. And everyone else, I'm going to hand it up on countdown. And I think we've got, you know, a couple of accountants and management consultants. So I did want to talk about technology just a little bit, because it means a lot of things, a lot of different people. Yeah. And say, what's the best thing about being on social media and online? And what, what is it that you, what's the one thing you want to see changed? The best thing people used to contact me and ask for, like, help with their Maths homework or their Kids Math homework. And the only thing I would, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't call it contentious, but the only thing I'd get into a heated debate with anyone about was women in STEM. Really? Yeah. People will come out with a really, you know, a comment that's just based on, on, on no evidence and, and internal bias and all sorts of things that are just provably wrong. And you could use that to kind of show other people, actually, this is why this is wrong. This isn't, you know, evidence. Were you always fighting then on Twitter? No, always. I mean, I once tweeted I was going to a charity dog show and I was looking forward to cuddling the dogs and I got told, some dogs don't like being cuddled. You know, so there are people that just like to trial, they just enjoy doing it. Yeah. It's been a steep, steep learning curve. Right. Because social media and Gen, well, us in general, we were all in our own little bubbles. So if you don't see what's going on, you don't see what's going on. And when you do see what's going on, but you didn't know it before and you know that everyone that's just like you doesn't know that this is happening, then that's, that was for me, that was particularly worrying. Everyone's really reluctant to use Holocaust analogies for anything. But I was recently in L.A. and I went to the Holocaust Museum and the part of the display that really spoke to me was about resistors and opposed to collaborators and who was passive and who did something and why. And one of the features was about the railways and how the railways, in any way, enabled the mass murder of millions of people. And the railways themselves aren't inherently bad. Of course. People working on the railways aren't inherently bad. But they were used to transport millions and millions of people to their death and people that were maintaining them or turning a blind eye or helping in some way. In some way played a part in that. And the internet itself isn't inherently bad. The internet is being used in a way now by extremists to, to, you know, mess with democracy, to incite hatred. And a lot of these are there being used not just to promote hatred, you know, anti-migrant anti-Slamophobia, anti-Jew. There's groups that promote curing the University of Cromers, your children's autism by giving them bleach animals. And they're using it for drug trafficking and they're using it for child pedophilia. And you can't see that these groups even exist and assuring them. So actually, I'm supporting a bill, Lucy Powell's trying to get a bill through which with Brexit has been overlooked as hope will come through. But trying to make the forums, the forum runners actually liable for the material on their business. It's massive to try and get a tech company to change their ways and to try and stop them making money. But someone needs some responsibility. If you went in the street and you spouted this kind of stuff, you would get arrested. You can do it online with tens of thousands of people literally in these groups. And there's no consequences and it's not visible. And we need to change that. I do have the trace. So this is the other thing that I kind of, I still try to get my head round or kind of normalise in my head is that if someone sent you a message, even if it is a public one, that's something they've written and they've put it down. So it's, maybe it's not their name, but it's their account. There's in some ways or in many ways that is traceable because otherwise the job wouldn't now. So it's really strange because it's like, how is that, how is, that's worse than you saying it, but you've incriminated yourself in such a big way. How is that something that on the, you know, at the moment there's kind of, there's two, two spheres of existence. There's the real world where the social response, social consequences. And then there's the online world where they're kind of on. We've kind of lost that. People are saying things and doing things that they would never do in real life. Yeah, exactly. A fantastic group that I'm now working with called the Centre for Counter-Indesidial Hate. I can't tell you how good these people are because it is a new phenomenon. Social media being used in nefarious ways or, you know, to kind of, at the detriment of society. And they're actually people, they're getting out there, they're on the front line there. They're doing research, they're doing analysis, they're doing actual studies that we can use to see how hate spreads. So they've released the first paper was called Don't Be the Trolls. And it really, really helped me online because the trolls kind of, they hijack your natural instinct to defend yourself or defend what you're talking about. And you just assume, I would just assume that a little bit of education, a little bit of light, enlightening would inoculate people against stuff. But actually, these people are inside their own social bubble. So, you know, they're numbers of people they can influence are small. And they are using high profile people. So magnify it. So magnify it. So say I've got 600,000 followers. If 95% of the people see the troll or see what they're saying and think that's appalling, that's horrible. Then they've won. Great. But 5% of people might think, oh, that's interesting. Who are these people? And then they're getting outside of their bubble. So I just love the campaign, I love the centre of the CCDH because they're talking to experts, they're talking to psychologists, behavioural psychologists, tech people, they're travelling around the world. You know, they're doing, you know, the proper scientific method to work out how this thing is happening and what we can do to nip it in the bud. We need to, you know, have more sensible people paying attention and answering questions and stuff. Instead of deciding that you're afraid. Do maths not war. Oh my goodness. Motto of life. Do maths not war. You know what? That is one of the things that can still totally distract me. That's the one of the things I love about puzzles and maths, whatever's going on in my head. Doing a maths puzzle just takes me straight to that puzzle and that's the only thing you're thinking about. And I often, you know, I'm supposed to be doing 10 other things and I get a sense of something and I'll just sit and do that because I enjoy it. What's your favourite maths question you've been sent over the years? Is there one that you can pull out and be like this? Probably not. Not one, there's one account on Twitter called. I think she's a teacher called Katrina Sheerah. Shout out to you. She, her little puzzles are brilliant. She makes them all less often. They're all, they're just unique and they're just different shapes. They look, you can have like a circle and a triangle and you, just the things that she asks you to do with them to work out. It's, they're really cool. They're just really good and they can take you know between in two minutes and 15 minutes. - Yeah. - And it's the type of puzzles that I really like 'cause it's not knowledge that you need. You just need a little bit of lateral thinking and you need to think, what do I know? How, that you've got such few bits of information? What can I work out from this? And I just love that thought process. - As long as it's maths. - So kind of find out my final two questions to you on puzzles. - One is, if you've seen the GCHQ puzzle book, I've got both of them. - We've got both of them. - So the first one, I think we have to move off to. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And even from page one, I'm like, this is not maths. - So the second one, well, it's not maths, but it's lateral thinking, isn't it? It's, and G, - Kip by, I like maths. (laughs) Well, some of it, you have to know things like the rainbow colours in German, which you're never gonna know. - The rainbow colours in German. - Well, some things like that, you know, the patterns that you're sporting. - Maths is hard enough. Like, and I'm saying this to someone that loves maths, I'm not sad enough to not have to know the rainbow colours. - But then you, that feels like physics. - But you just know that, you know, spies or whatever in the 40s, in the 30s, they had to think like this. They had to try and crack the code. - This is what I could never be a spy. I mean, I also know that I'm a big, big, big secret. So, my second question to you on problems is around escape rooms. - Ah. - Yeah, your name. - I haven't done any. - Whoa. I need to. - I'll come on, someone out there has got time to reach my name. - I need to come round. - I do want to, because I like puzzles, but would I just be like a real, like the worst person to take into one of those rooms if everyone else wants to have a go? - Because I'm just like, no. - No, it's me. - Well, it is teamwork. - I've done the crystal maze. - I have you. - So I think, I think that the crystal maze mixed with the GCHCU book. - Okay. - So we went, the team took me for, I've never been to one as well. And maybe some thing that mathematicians are just like, it's below me. I've seen to it meet one for surprise from my 30th birthday. And I remember being really annoyed, because I was like, none of this is like, logically connecting to the other thing. - Yeah. - But also me just looking at scraps of paper and trying to pull it together randomly, it's not a real maths problem. - Someone sent me messages about a pubbing Manchester that I've tweeted about Alan Turing, because they're obviously big tearing up there. And there's a pubbing Manchester that has kind of like, drinking versions of, I mean, not that I'm doing that at the moment, but of like little tearing problems. - A little tearing problems. - Yeah, maths problems. - It's over a drink. - Lovely. - Drunk maths. (laughing) - Is an idea. - That's unique. - Like drunk histories. - We should pitch that. - Drunk maths. You heard it here first. And you just get drunk and talk about. - And then do maths. - Yeah. - Now you don't talk about maths. You do the problems whilst inebriated. I mean, I'm endorsing drinking responsibly, of course. And if anyone that's Tito, I don't know what they, you have to spin round loads of times and then do the maths maybe. - I've recently discovered non-alcoholic beer. It's a whole new world. (upbeat music) Years ago, there was a Marcus de Sotoi and Alan Davies' programme about maths. They did two. They're in one of them. They strapped both Dr. Sotoi and Alan into brain, like imagery, software, while they gave them basic sums, like basic stuff like nine times seven or whatever. - Yeah. - 63. - And Alan, no, no. Alan was using far less brain power than Marcus de Sotoi doing the same simple sums. - There was that because, so I was gonna say more pressure on yourself. - He's not just that, but also higher level maths is not what you do on cantampe. - Oh no. - What you did in your masters is not cantampe. So I say this people all the time. You go to university to do maths. You don't see a single number four years. - No, exactly. And people said to me when I was going to uni, you allowed to use a calculator in your maths degree. I was like, yeah, they're like, oh, must be easier then. I was like, well, a calculator in a maths degree is as useful as a calculator in a French degree. Like do you think we just time speak or a bigger number together? It's not what we do. - So it was like, cantampe would not be, like you've had to train your brain to do the cantampe. - Oh, I had to relan my time-sabled. - Exactly. - Yeah. - Exactly. - My time-saving practice. So yeah, so we did this forecast without the help of a calculator. Thank you very much for listening. - One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. - So there was something I did prepare. I've been waiting to use it, but I didn't think it would be useful anyway. And it's going to sound really random. (laughing) Now I've built it up too much, but there was this thing I was going to stop looking. This is what you were looking at. - I'm still looking at it. I was just, you know, that Rachel and I'm resetting in the tree, multiplying things by three. I didn't know where it was going to be useful. And now I've said it out loud. No, no, just crazy thing. (laughing) It's just something, that was it. It was just something like a little ditty. I thought we'd end up doing maths together, and that could be like a thing and we'd be multiplying. - Oh, we still can. - We still can. - We still can. - Three's nice, nine's lovely, 11's great. - Right. - But then if you do nine again and get 27, that was where I thought we'd end up. I don't know why I thought we'd thought we'd get 81. Just a bit of fun. That doesn't work as an outro, does it? (laughing) I think we've got it. (laughing) Bye guys, thanks for listening. (laughing) - It's 100. - It's 100. - 108. - One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.