Kate Ertmann on the Math Behind Chaos, Business, and Everyday Thinking

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS
Gabrielle Birchak: And then I, it’s almost like we’ve already been drinking and it’s not even noon.
Kate Ertmann: Well, I dunno about you, but No. Okay. No I haven’t. I’m just drinking water.
Gabrielle Birchak: Welcome to Math, science History, a podcast dedicated to bringing the topics of math and science to you through the lens of history. It’s still Women’s History Month, and I am still focusing on the awesomeness of women.
In today’s episode, I am interviewing Kate …Ertmann from the blog Kate Loves Math with an Asterisk. I’m Gabrielle Birchak. I’m an author and a speaker with a background in math, science, and journalism. And by the time you’re done listening to this, you will find a love for math that you never thought you had.
Kate Ertmann brings a fascinating and unexpected journey into the world of mathematics. Before she turned 30, Kate had already made her mark in film and television starting as a child actor in New York City and later working as an indie filmmaker, TV commercial producer and digital producer. But it was when she started integrating 3D animation into her projects that she had an epiphany math and science.
Her longtime passions weren’t just behind the scenes. They were integral to everything that she loved. In 2022, she launched Kate Loves Math with an asterisk. It is a blog filled with insightful math centric essays that explore the why behind life’s complexities and offer a mathematical lens for understanding the world.
Kate is even on the editorial board for the Mathematical Association of America’s Math Values blog. Bridging the gap between academic mathematics and the everyday world. She and I had so much to talk about and I have to admit, I totally fangirled the interview. She is so awesome, and we have since decided that we’re definitely going to have to have podcast again because this one.
Was way too much fun. That being said, in this episode, we’re gonna dive into Kate’s journey, her passion for making math relatable and how she applies mathematical thinking to business, creativity, and life itself. Let’s welcome Kate Ertmann of Kate loves Math to Math! Science! History!
Kate Ertmann with Kate Loves Math.

It is such a joy to have you on Math! Science! History! I’ve been reading your blog and I feel like you and I connect because we have so much in common. We are both former actresses and we both just love math. So how are you today?
Kate Ertmann: I’m doing okay. And and I, everything you just said, I completely 100000000% agree with because I think it’s unusual that, what do you call it?
Venn diagram of professional actor and someone who loves math and likes to talk about math with other people and get excited about math. Those two things. It’s rare. It’s rare.
Gabrielle Birchak: It is. It is really rare and sometimes, okay, now we’re just going off the questions. I’m listening to that sometimes, like if you’re ever out with somebody, you go into math and they have no idea what you’re talking about.
Do you ever experience that?
Kate Ertmann: I think more like someone will be like, problem trying to problem solve something. You go out with friends and they’re like, oh, this happened today, or. I am working with this person and trying to do that, and so much of my math research and writing is what I’ve actually just recently learned is called sociophysics or referred to as sociophysics.
So it’s using math and math tools to, to try to understand human behavior and societal phenomenon and things like that. And that’s just, that’s what I’m drawn to is about the math of relationships. So when I’m out with friends and my husband knows this also, that he’ll see it in my face where someone’s talking about how I don’t know how to do this or how to do that, and how can this kind of relationship thing exist.
Whatever, and I’ll just be sitting there ha, wanting to say something, but I’ve been here before and I know for a couple drinks in, no one’s gonna hear it. They’re just gonna look at me and be like, Aw, Kate, Kate, and your fun little math stuff. I’m like, but I can help you.
So, yeah. Yeah.
Gabrielle Birchak: Oh my gosh. The biting of the tongue. I am all too familiar with that one. Yes. Yes.
Kate Ertmann: And it’s, you know, I mean, it’s also just wanting to talk and be heard. They don’t necessarily, they’re not asking for assistance or support in any very specific way. So I’m like, mm-hmm. I’ll just, I’ll wait to see if someone asks me, then I can help or offer help or whatever.
And sometimes it’s just, it’s taken me a while to understand that this isn’t a, that math is not fascinating for everyone. Weird. I don’t get it, but
Gabrielle Birchak: I don’t either.
Kate Ertmann: Supposedly. Apparently it’s not. Yeah, I’ll just keep it to myself. Maybe make a note on the side and think, oh, maybe I’ll write something about that sort of situation.
Change the names.
Gabrielle Birchak: But don’t people realize that math is where the party’s at?
Kate Ertmann: Girl. Yes. I mean, I actually, I think so many times people think the party’s at science and I’m like, yeah, there’s a party there, but there’d be no science party if there wasn’t a math party first, so,
Gabrielle Birchak: exactly. Mm-hmm. And there’s always that whole drinking and deriving thing.
Mm-hmm. It says fun, like drinking and deriving.
Kate Ertmann: Drinking and deriving. Now that’s a good name for something. Maybe not a band, but, Hmm. I’m making a note.
Gabrielle Birchak: Here you go. I don’t know, maybe, maybe we could have it adjunct podcast together.
Kate Ertmann: Okay. I seriously, I’m making a note. I really like that. Drinking and deriving.
Wow. Happy hour. Hmm. I’m liking this.
Gabrielle Birchak: Go on. Okay, so I wanna find out. You were a former actress. Mm-hmm. And then you became a business designer organizer. Yeah.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah. Well, there’s also 3D animation in between that
Gabrielle Birchak: and then the 3D animation. Give me a lowdown
Kate Ertmann: I will
Gabrielle Birchak: on, on your life story. I, I, I wanna hear all of this.
Kate Ertmann: So, grew up in New York on Long Island from the ages of about seven to I wanna say 16 ish. I was a professional child actor in New York. Did lots and lots of commercials and Broadway and a couple soap operas, and I was just, I was a working actor and there’d be times I’d be outta school for periods of time and have to catch up on other things.
Went to college in Ohio, Ohio University. Went to get my degree in telecommunications. That’s what it was called in the late eighties. But basically radio, tv, broadcasting, things that are tools and stuff that are obsolete now. But I realized there was more power behind the camera. And then I, after working a bit after, college in kind of documentary film work, I moved to Portland, Oregon.
At that time, there was a lot of infomercial production.
Gabrielle Birchak: Okay.
Kate Ertmann: So I came to Portland because there was so much work here. That’s where I still am. There was so much work here doing that type of work. Plus there was a lot of movies of the week that were coming up. Remember Movies of the Week?
Gabrielle Birchak: Aww. I do. Oh my gosh.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah. They were shooting a lot of them in Portland at this time because of state incentives for the production to come up from LA and it was before Canada, Vancouver started doing all their big incentives. So they were coming to Portland a bunch and they wanted just to figure out like how they could put something more.
In there during this time when a lot of people, I guess, were changing the station, because infomercials always felt like a TV show or some, that’s why you stayed and watched them. That was right at the time when Toy Story came out and somehow these worlds collided of 3D animation and being able to show the inner workings of a vacuum or how a Boflex machine works, stuff like that. And in producing those commercials, the 3D animators that I could find were amazing creatives. And some of them were like dangerous enough to know how to invoice for their work and track their hours. And a couple of them started an animation company, 3D animation company.
And as so many things happen in life, you get asked a question at one point in your life that you’re like, yes, I’m gonna do that. And so I was asked to be their partner in this 3D animation company. And I said, yeah, yeah, I’ll do that. And I ended up doing that for 15 years and love 3D animation because though I’m not a 3D animator and never became a 3D animator, I knew how to talk about it because it’s this beautiful mix of math science and creative and I just, I flippin loved it and I still love it. Yeah. So the other partners left and I ended up running this animation company on my own somehow. So did that 15 years, sold the company, then went on to do the organizational design with startups. So I. Basically that’s what I learned from all those years of the animation world of running a company, was that the part I really enjoyed was putting the structure of it together, the blueprint of it, and I liked working with folks who had this great idea and they were able to get funding, but they didn’t know how to build the company part of it. And I loved working, especially with females. I wanted to allow them to be able to work on their product or their service and they could get their funding. And I could just be in the background making all the spreadsheets, designing it out for five years doing the infrastructure of this is how you would do hiring and making that, and then giving that to them.
And my last task would always be hiring the COO. Basically be taking all the stuff that I had made, I’d hand it to them. Then I’d kind of just walk backwards outta the building and be like, bye, good luck. And then go on to the next one. And I did that for like close to seven years, I would say, and it was during pandemic times that I started doing Kate Loves Math.
There you go. That’s my long story. It’s
Gabrielle Birchak: gone very well because now you’re on the editorial board of the Mathematical Association America’s Blog Column Math Matters.
Kate Ertmann: I have. That was the scariest part for me. Like for real, it was that the mathematicians would, quote unquote, find me out, know that I do not have an advanced degree in mathematics.
Yeah. Open arms. I went to one of their, went to Math Fest in 2023 I think it was, and Wow, what a lovely group of humans. You found this little thing to talk about and you start geeking out together, and then Yes, they’re understanding. They’re like, wait, you don’t have a advanced math degree, and I’m all sheepish.
I’m like, no, I do not, but I read all like “You’re a mathematician.” “Oh, no, no I’m not.” “Yes you are.” “You think, you breathe, you love mathematics, and that’s a mathematician.” and I realized, oh, I’m talking to people who are Gen X, my generation or younger. And I realized in my head, mathematician equaled of course, like older white guy who’s curmudgeony, crabby, and would be pushing back on me saying, I did all this.
That’s, if you didn’t do all that, there’s no way you’re a mathematician like me. I found out that, oh no, there’s actual real humans now that are lovely mathematicians and don’t feel all defensive about that. They have these advanced degrees and I don’t, they just are happy that there’s this enjoyment about math that we can share
Gabrielle Birchak: Exactly.
That’s a world that embraces us because I don’t have advanced degrees in math.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah.
Gabrielle Birchak: I think we’re just stuck with that stereotype in our head. ’cause that’s the environment we grew up in.
Kate Ertmann: Right.
Gabrielle Birchak: It’s like a mathematician is somebody with a PhD who’s been teaching in the professorial area?
Kate Ertmann: Yeah.
Gabrielle Birchak: For 20 some years. It’s like, no, no, we live, eat, and breathe this stuff. We are mathematicians. Yes.
Kate Ertmann: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And it’s, I feel like it’s just recently that I’ve owned that. And when I am posting or I’m writing an email or whatever, I will identify myself as, I’m a mathematician. My name is Kate Ertmann.
Gabrielle Birchak: You are! And here’s the thing, here’s what I wanna, ’cause it’s Women’s History Month.
Kate Ertmann: Yes.
Gabrielle Birchak: And I know that as women we’re often. Put in the corner, nobody puts baby in the corner. We’re often put in the corner and you know, made to feel less than because we are women in the lab or women in academia.
How did you come to terms with imposter syndrome and how did you just get over those little nagging thoughts in the back? ’cause I have mine, I have my imposter syndrome thoughts in the back of my head all the time. Yeah.
How do you get over that?
Kate Ertmann: Ha ha ha ha ha. Um.
Gabrielle Birchak: Is that a touchy subject?
Kate Ertmann: No, no, no, no. It’s not a touchy subject at all. It really isn’t. I think that my pause is because I don’t believe that a hundred percent have gotten over it, but I would say that certainly having a good group of friends or colleagues, peers that you know, will basically. Almost get upset with you if you talk down about yourself and about your accomplishments.
So I have a healthy group of folks who have basically one step below berate me for when I talk down about anything and I’m like about myself. I’m like, oh, okay. Cool. Got it. I got it, got it, got it. I’m good at this. I’m good at this. This is I’m, yes, I’m just as good. And for me, it started with being in the tech community and being in high tech and startup community.
And again, being with. Other women. Once you have other people confirm the, those deep thoughts where you’re questioning stuff and you have other people confirm. Yeah, I was thinking that too. It just, it helps wash it away out of yourself.
Gabrielle Birchak: We’ll be right back after a quick word from my advertisers.
One of my favorite mantras.
My brother uses Be Afraid and Do it anyway.
Kate Ertmann: Oh, that’s really good. Oh, that’s really, really good. Yeah. Oh, I love that.
Gabrielle Birchak: Well, that’s a Steve Birchak quote, just to let you know.
Kate Ertmann: I love it.
Gabrielle Birchak: Yeah, you are afraid. There we go.
Kate Ertmann: Taking out my pen, writing that one down. Be afraid to do it anyway.
Hmm. Which of course for a long time I would say that I was the monarch of studying the risk out of risk. So of course when I would finally figure out how to make that jump to do this thing, because I would be like, okay, I would do this. If this happens, I, this, this happens, these opportunities would go away.
So yeah, this kind of goes with it where. Be afraid. You say be afraid and do it anyway.
Gabrielle Birchak: Yeah. Be afraid and do it anyway.
Kate Ertmann: That’s what I need to, that’s gonna replace my tendency to study the risk at risk, because I miss the opportunities because of that.
Gabrielle Birchak: Oh, oh my gosh.
Kate Ertmann: Right.
Gabrielle Birchak: Okay. So you, like you say, you’re the monarch of evaluating the risk out of risk.
That’s the tech brain. That’s a tech thing right there, because you’re always looking for what fires do we have going on down the road
Kate Ertmann: mm-hmm.
Gabrielle Birchak: That we’re going to need to address once we go down this path.
Kate Ertmann: Mm-hmm. I’m definitely systems oriented person. I love building systems. That’s why I loved doing the organizational design work of building a system for a company, essentially.
And anytime you build a system, anytime you build a project plan, whatever, it’s going to go, maybe not off the rails, but it’s not gonna go according to plan. It’s, it just won’t. And I would get excuses from a lot of creatives actually, who would say, it’s never gonna go the way that I plan it to, so why bother making a plan?
And I’m like, ah, you need to make a plan because you need to know when, you need to be aware of when it goes off the plan. And then that way, maybe you don’t know exactly what to do, but you know that something is not going according to plan. You know, visually think about it. If you go, if you’re hiking on a trail and you take the wrong path off that trail, it bifurcates or something, then the sooner you know the easier it is to get back to that, to the point that you wanna be at.
Gabrielle Birchak: Yeah, I love that. So it’s like there could be a fire here, we’re gonna re-navigate once we see that fire.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah. And you may not, you may be able maybe. Just going on past the fire, like sweet. I can tell you team that we actually passed that potential fire. Five days ago. It’s not that hard to create a plan, just create a plan, know where you wanna go, and either reverse engineer it or figure out like what the main stopping points are along the way and how long that’ll take.
And yeah, I know, again, this is my, I try not to be all like, how do you not know this? Which is the hardest thing. It just feels so logical to me. But then I realized that there’s so much creative, there’s a lot of creative stuff I’m I am good at and I feel fortunate that I have spent so much time in the creative world, but there’s also a bunch of creative things that I cannot nevermind, do not want to do, like drawing or painting.
That kind of stuff is very frustrating to me. I find no relaxation at it and
Gabrielle Birchak: Oh my God,
Kate Ertmann: I’ve had so many artists, friends who are artists say, oh, just take this. Let’s go and do one of those fun, like what are they that you drink wine and you paint picture thing.
Gabrielle Birchak: Oh my I hate those.
Kate Ertmann: That sounds like hell. I never ever want to do that. That is horrible.
Gabrielle Birchak: I did it once and I was nauseous and it wasn’t the wine that made me sick. It was the experience.
Kate Ertmann: Yep, exactly. I’m just like, this is not what’s in my head. I can’t do this the way I want to. Just be free with it, Kate, whatever it could be. No. No, I’ll not. I can relax, but this is not how I relax.
This is this. No,
Gabrielle Birchak: exactly.
Kate Ertmann: No, no, no, no.
Gabrielle Birchak: Gimme a good math book and I’ll sit down and I’m so relaxed.
Kate Ertmann: I’m so relaxed. I’m like, oh my brain’s, this is stimulating and I can understand this, and then I can just close the book. Take a nap. Think about it. Oh, I can use this. That’s lovely. God.
Gabrielle Birchak: Now I love reading your blog.
It is just so wonderful. And the asterisk tell. Tell me more about the asterisk.
Kate Ertmann: Well, if you hadn’t, you hadn’t realized it yet. I can go off on tangents a bit and to me they are important to the just of a whole story, so, most of my essays. Yeah, I have them. I think maybe one or two don’t. And they are just those moments that reminds me of this.
So it could be a reference to some something in baseball ’cause I love baseball and it might, and so, so it’s something that’s not, , integral to understanding whatever the main topic is of this essay. If you know me at all, and if you are someone who enjoys my little off sense of humor. That’s where you’ll really get a lot of my personality is in the asterisk,
Gabrielle Birchak: But let’s talk about math. Okay. Those asterisks.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah.
Gabrielle Birchak: You say they’re not integral, but if you think about math, oh boy. Math has everything that we know about math to this point has been brought to us through foundations over the years, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it’s like all our entire mathematical foundations are built on asterisks, on Kate’s asterisks.
All these asterisks have built up your blog. Much like math over the years is built up where we are today.
Kate Ertmann: Oh my God. You are giving me the best. I can’t wait to hear this, uh, podcast back. ’cause I’m gonna just rip out that part and then put that on the asterisk page of you describing that because that’s perfect.
Yes. Like an asterisk. This part. Oh boy. Oh, the possibilities. Opportunities. This is great. Yeah. Hit me in the right place there. I’m like, that is it.
Gabrielle Birchak: Yeah. That’s what your asterisks are. They’re foundational. It’s like when you read, okay. You read a math book and you know how it has an equation, and then it has a letter with in parentheses on the side.
Kate Ertmann: Mm-hmm.
Gabrielle Birchak: Because it references a second equation.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah.
Gabrielle Birchak: You know what I’m talking about.
Kate Ertmann: Excellent.
Gabrielle Birchak: That’s exactly what your asterisks are. Oh,
Kate Ertmann: oh my. See, I feel like they’re. Or that they’re more flippant things. But now that I think about it, there’s definitely times while I’m writing, I’m like, that’s too off course.
I’m not gonna put that in as an asterisk. Yeah, it does support. Gosh, you’re, you’re awesome.
Gabrielle Birchak: Well, that’s how I see. That’s why I love, that’s why I wanted to bring up that question, because I love these asterisks. They’re like, oh my gosh. It’s like reading a math book. This is so cool.
Kate Ertmann: Thank you! I love it. I love it.
Gabrielle Birchak: We’ll be right back after a quick word from my advertisers.
I love this blog because you go into chaos and it’s one of my favorite subjects. Tell me about your blog and what inspired it and how you have this affinity for chaos.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah, so I’m a little obsessed with it, with chaos, the linguistics of it.
Okay, so I first read about chaos. And read about dynamics and all of that stuff in Steven Strogatz one of his books and such a fantastic explainer of mathematics. His more well-known books are, I’m saying this now, I’m like spinning my chair around. What’s the X one? Oh, help me out here.
Gabrielle Birchak: Joy of X.
Kate Ertmann: Joy of X. Found it! Yes. Joy of X. He’s written a bunch of books and he’s writes for New York Times. Amazing, amazing mathematician. And he first wrote, though, the first thing I read by him that he wrote before, Joy of X is a book called Calculus of Friendship. And it is this such, this personal, beautiful book about this relationship he had with his calculus teacher in high school, and there is a section that he talks about how he started focusing in dynamics and telling his high school teacher about that and the way he talked about it was such passion and joy in all the discovery of it, and also chaos being in the scope of all the different mathematical theories and concepts out there.
That chaos is relatively young. It’s like a little over 50 years old compared to hundreds and hundreds of years old for many other concepts and theories. And when he described that chaos is not about something being outta control, that it’s about a new pattern being developed and it’s actually very in control.
And here’s all the things that prove that it’s something that’s in control. I realized I just had that moment of, well, why do people say something is chaotic? Especially people who are sports announcers. I watch a lot of motor sports and every time someone would say, oh, it’s getting chaotic, or That was chaotic.
Anything chaotic. I, again, very expressive person and especially when you’re around people that you’re comfortable with, like your partner and some close friends. I would, not inwardly, but like very outwardly be rolling my eyes, and it’s that whole like, actually, that’s not the right use of the word and whatever.
Yes, I would do that, and it just became one of those, I don’t know, glowing words in the sky that only I could see. I started just digging into it and teaching myself more and more about, and learning more and more about it. The big boom for me about it all is that, oh, chaos is not mathematical chaos. True chaos is not only about things being in control, that is just a new pattern has developed, but that it has steps to it.
And when something does go chaotic, well that doesn’t mean that we, outside of this, that are watching it, it does not mean that we have no power. Doesn’t mean that we put our hands up and say, oh, well that got chaotic and or it is chaotic and what are you gonna do when chaos happens in real life? I so strongly believe that it gets me crazy
one, when someone uses the word chaos incorrectly and usually they use it to incite people to get all, it’s crazy. It’s outta control. It’s like, no, it’s not. It’s actually in control. That would be disorder. When you see something and you think it’s chaos, no, it’s disorder. Whole other story with disorder.
But with chaos, not only does it mean that there’s new pattern developing, it means that you can actually evaluate it, see how far along it is, and there’s all these different things of checking this. There’s strange attractors and there’s basin of attraction, and there’s these very mathy words and mathy phrases that can be applied to real life, that you can evaluate how far along this trajectory of chaos is, and you can do something to change.
You’re not gonna change everything and you’re not gonna, you are not gonna stomp it out or it’s not going to go away. Again, the train’s left the station, but you can absolutely most certainly nudge it. Nudge it to get off that little path that it’s on, or you can change. The outcome, the final outcome of where that trajectory is going.
And so I believe we have power when chaos is around. And right now there’s some chaos going on.
Gabrielle Birchak: My gosh, I know. And all we can do is control our own chaos. But I love that you bring up nudging things. Yeah. It’s the whole concept of when there’s attractors
Kate Ertmann: Yeah.
Gabrielle Birchak: in chaos. And how it creates a pattern that develops within that chaotic system.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah.
Gabrielle Birchak: And all it takes is a little nudge. Yeah. To make it go in a different direction. So it’s empowering, actually, what you’re talking about is very empowering.
Kate Ertmann: I agree. I agree. So many times when something happens and that’s upsetting and certainly you feel like you don’t have any control, but rarely.
Especially those of us that have privilege and have position in the world compared to the majority of others, we do have power to do something. Is it easy? No. Do we have to make this nudge that we’re gonna do? Does that need to become a priority? If we’re gonna actually, if the nudge is going to nudge and have a result that we want to have, yeah.
It’s not gonna be something you can just. Like you take out the garbage, you’re like, oh yeah, I gotta do that little nudge thing. No, we’re gonna, it’s gonna need to be a collective, probably a community coming together to work on it together. But are we powerless? Absolutely not. We have power. We have power.
Gabrielle Birchak: Yes. Yes. Now, back to the concept of disorder. Do you think we have power over disorder?
Kate Ertmann: Nah. I mean, disorder is, that disorder will happen. This all happens in complex systems and events happen and they will be disorderly or they could be chaotic, and disorder is slipping on. The banana peel disorder is. Uh, car accident or lose your wallet, whatever.
But when it’s a pattern that keeps happening over and over and like an exact pattern, so I’ll say to someone, yeah, you might slip on a banana peel every day, but unless that banana peel, I mean, one, wow, you’re clumsy. Watch where you’re going. But two, for it to be a chaotic. Chaos going on in your life with that banana peel.
That banana peel would have to be in the exact same place every single day. And same time, like all the variables have to be exactly the same every day, and the condition’s exactly the same every time it happens to you. If otherwise, it’s just disorder. It’s still really annoying, but it’s also a very common part of life.
And the thing with disorder, I find. That happens is that if you do get in a car accident a few times a year and it is in the same area of town, we have a tendency to want to avoid fixing something, not even fixing, avoid, like trying to figure out the remedy to why that was happening and just as humans, and instead, we will do these workarounds, that will usually take more time.
’cause you’re not gonna, you refuse to drive through that area of town anymore. So you’re gonna. Take the highway that goes around or whatever it might be.
Gabrielle Birchak: Or write the city. So they put in a streetlight, you know, let’s nudge it.
Kate Ertmann: Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you can nudge in disorder, but it’s much easier to just be like, la, la, la.
Just let it keep happening to other people. And I will go over here and it’s like, but nothing fixed. What was happening there? So. Oy.
Gabrielle Birchak: I don’t know if you think about it. Could disorder possibly be an element of chaos that can be rectified through nudging? Could we nudge disorder into a state of chaos so that it is manageable?
I, no, now I’m just throwing out ideas.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would, I could have an answer to that if I read my chapter on disorder because I can’t remember off the top of my head. Um, uh, my instinct is to say, to say no to your question because why Kate? Why is it not. It has. Yeah. It has something to do with the dynamics of the system, how it’s effective.
Gabrielle Birchak: Okay.
Kate Ertmann: But I don’t know what it is offhand ’cause my brain and memory are for shit.
Gabrielle Birchak: Mm-hmm. Well, it’s not even, I’m not even noon. We haven’t had our, our coffee and, you
know.
Kate Ertmann: But do you do that also? Like, I do this, I actually relate to my husband and my, my husband’s a writer also, and he and some other friends who are writers where when you’ve not read something that you wrote for a while, you put it out there and then you come back to it and you read it and you’re like, damn, that’s good.
Gabrielle Birchak: Oh my gosh. Lately I’ve been saying that a lot. I’m like, I obviously didn’t write this when I had AI because this is really good.
Kate Ertmann: This just really good.
That’s just, I have gotten to the point, and I’m okay if this goes in the podcast. I have gotten to the point in writing as someone who has gone through menopause, which I am, I dunno if I’m proud to say, but I know it’s part of being a woman. I’m fine.
Gabrielle Birchak: We’ve survived it.
Yes.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah.
Yes, exactly. And I’m lucky.
I did not have a lot of outwardly physical things that came up for me that changed, that were symptoms or results or whatever of menopause. But the big one for me was that the fog brain and my brain just, whoa. Just, it was amazing how long it would take me to write a simple email would take me truly three hours to write, and it was very, very frustrating.
Anyway, one the things that now that I’m on the other side of it and HRTs, I love my hormones, don’t take them away from me. Um, the thing I started doing was when I would have, when I would be doing research, I would start putting my initials, my own initials, but KE colon, and then I would write my notes and then I’m continuing do research.
And so. I would know when I would go back and look at those notes. ’cause I keep them categorized where I have things about chaos and where I have things about disorder or I have things about parallels, whatever. I’d go back and I would read, I’d be like, oh, this is from, this is research, from this book, whatever.
And then I would realize, oh, that’s a conclusion I wrote of my own. And I know it’s not from the book because I wrote KE next to it, but do I remember actually writing it? No, not at all. I don’t remember having a thought. I don’t remember that. That’s my conclusion. So, um, yeah, I tried to like, I don’t know what that’s, there’s gotta be a name for it.
Of noting, like denoting or, or making. Basically putting these little reminders down like, no, this is your conclusion. Good job Kate. Like Kate from two years ago. Like, good job saying future Kate.
Gabrielle Birchak: I like that. That is brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. I used just put a star next to it. That’s how I know it. To mine, it’s got a little star next to it
Kate Ertmann: and you know that that’s what comes after the stars is your own.
Gabrielle Birchak: Yeah.
Kate Ertmann: Put a note on it
Gabrielle Birchak: Yeah.
Kate Ertmann: Mm-hmm.
Gabrielle Birchak: And, and then I have the flags, the sticky flags. Oh, yeah. And I have all these flags in all my books. Mm-hmm. And I know, like the pink ones are mine.
Kate Ertmann: Oh, I like that. Oh, that’s really good. See, I go color coding on my sticky tabs with like subjects. Interesting. So I have, so if I am writing, I assign whatever a color to a certain essay, a certain topic, I’ll put those in the different books and on some of those sticky tabs, they’re all of a sudden I come across a KE colon. I’m like, oh, okay. That’s my conclusion about that. That’s actually not right for the book, huh? We all have our processes and
Gabrielle Birchak: You’re an active reader. That’s wonderful. I love that.
Kate Ertmann: Oh boy do I read? I love it.
Gabrielle Birchak: Oh my gosh.
Kate Ertmann: Delicious.
Gabrielle Birchak: We’ll be right back after a quick word from my advertisers.
What was the most unexpected place where you found math?
Kate Ertmann: Unexpected? I do go back to harmony all the time because not so much harmony when … And it is Harmony. Okay. I am, I’m, I’m just gonna put a line in the sand. There it is. Harmony.
Gabrielle Birchak: Okay.
Kate Ertmann: So I, I mean, I would say obviously harmony, anything I’m having to do with music, there’s math in it that seems obvious to me.
That be it, the notes on a scale or just so many different things are mathematical in music. But with harmony, specifically, when I realized that I could talk to folks on a team in the workplace, on a business team, or again, like in a community organization, whatever it might be, that it’s a talking about harmony and sync or even sports.
I have done it with sports where harmony is all about there being measured being at least three parts, and it could be more than that, but at least three parts.
Gabrielle Birchak: Mm-hmm.
Kate Ertmann: Which could be three people that are very much individuals. So when you think about harmony music, they’re different
Gabrielle Birchak: notes,
Kate Ertmann: yeah. And that have a mathematical reason why that they sounds so great together, it creates such balance. So when I would talk about teams or I would talk to a, a leader of a team, again, being in a, in business or in sports or in a community, whatever it might be, I. I would ask, okay, do you want your team to be in sync or do you want to be in harmony?
’cause a lot of times people use that interchangeably, those two words. So a lot of leaders in a create a service industry, like in an agency or something, would say to me, okay, yes, I want to have a harmonic team. I’d say, great. So the thing that you need to remember is that when someone leaves the company, leaves the team.
Whatever it might be. That means then the next person to fill that position is either going to need to be exactly that piece of pie, that now that left, they need to be exactly that, for that to be harmonious again. Or folks who are left behind either gonna need to be able to take up that other part of the harmonic part that left.
There are others that can take over for that missing voice. And then I can go into a whole thing about how you write up.
Gabrielle Birchak: I love that
Kate Ertmann: job descriptions. You gotta write them up so they’re not about an individual need to write ’em about the responsibilities.
But then I get into a whole nerdy thing about organizational design, and I’m not gonna do that to you right now.
Gabrielle Birchak: Okay.
Now you have another podcast with you. We’ll go over organizational design because I love this topic. Wow. I love it. Okay, so I know we need to wrap this up, but it gets me thinking about when companies lose employees.
Kate Ertmann: Yes.
Gabrielle Birchak: Because when one person leaves, then statistics show if one person leaves
Kate Ertmann: mm-hmm.
Gabrielle Birchak: More people are gonna leave.
Kate Ertmann: Mm-hmm.
Gabrielle Birchak: And then all of a sudden you gotta restructure everything all over again.
Kate Ertmann: Uhhuh.
Gabrielle Birchak: So this is gonna definitely be another podcast.
Kate Ertmann: Okay, cool. Really? I, I got so much to say about that. So yeah. Awesome. Next time.
Gabrielle Birchak: Oh my God.
Kate Ertmann: Next time on drinking and deriving.
Gabrielle Birchak: Drinking and deriving.
Kate Ertmann: I love it. It’s so, that’s such a great title and it’s,
Gabrielle Birchak: thank you
Kate Ertmann: love ’cause people are gonna be like drinking and driving. That’s not okay. Like, no, no, no, no, no. Drinking and deriving.
Gabrielle Birchak: Deriving
Kate Ertmann: and it’s like little wink. Haha. We’re math nerds.
Gabrielle Birchak: Well, before we wrap up, how can people find you? How can they find Kate loves math on the interwebs?
Kate Ertmann: Mm-hmm.
Gabrielle Birchak: Or even your speaking gigs.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah. Cool. Primarily, you can always find me and find my work at KateLovesMath.com. So there’s videos and there’s audio stuff and of course all the essays and there’s the Short Stuff, my Mathnificent Wows, which are just one word.
Quick little bites of just this argument or whatever. Okay. It’s just, here’s the mathematical application applied to real life. There’s that kind of stuff. But the socials make me angry because that stupid algorithm changes all the time and or you’re a B test while someone else is being A tested, who knows?
And just when you think you figure out, here’s how I can use this to spread the beauty of math to others it changes. So LinkedIn is a place where I communicate a lot and have great conversations, and then these days I’m a huge fan of Blue Sky. It feels like the old days of Twitter, and I can, like, I’m just making these relationships with some writers and mathematicians that I never could on other platforms.
I think just ’cause they’re, everyone’s just trying to, just finding each other and feeling all giddy about it. Now, if you had asked me this question six months ago, I’ve been like, Threads. Threads is where it’s at. That’s where I, it’s like old Twitter, blah, blah, blah. Um, and then, yeah, I went down a hole.
So Blue Sky’s where it’s at for me. I am on Instagram, sometimes I’m on Facebook, sometimes. I mean, I have those accounts and I’ll post things there certainly, but I’m not as. Active. It’s more out of necessity. And then I love to speak at conferences. I love to do podcasts. And honestly, I especially love doing panels.
I love having conversations, I love having our interviews. I love doing stuff like this. I’m just fine and dandy with doing a 20 minute, 40 minute presentation talking about chaos in the workplace or talking about using how to bring teams together that come from different generations. And I’ll say, this is how you do it using math, and this is how you create these healthy, long-term teams.
But I can do that. And I love doing that. Conversations are the best.
Gabrielle Birchak: The conversations, the panels, the speeches.
Kate Ertmann: Yeah,
Gabrielle Birchak: the website. KateLovesMath.com. You’re on all the socials. And then for people who visit your website, they gotta sign up for the newsletter.
Kate Ertmann: Yes, please.
Gabrielle Birchak: Because the Mathnificent Words, the Mathnificent Words are revelations.
They’re so inspiring. I love them. So
Kate Ertmann: thank you.
Gabrielle Birchak: Um, if, if you’re listening to this podcast, please go to KateLovesMath.com and sign up for the newsletter and get the Mathnificent Words are so wonderful.
Kate Ertmann: Yes, please. And just, yeah, even like unabashedly, y’all know the more subscribers you get the better that everybody knows how it works.
I have this list of my Top 10 Books.
Gabrielle Birchak: Yes.
Kate Ertmann: And why they’re my Top 10 Math Books. And you can get that and subscribe at the same time, which is a lovely little thing and people can unsubscribe at any time. But I send two emails a month. It’s not a ton. Uh, it’s,
Gabrielle Birchak: it’s not a lot.
Kate Ertmann: It’s just enough to just to say, Hey, I’m thinking of this.
And. Uh, have you thought about this and it’s great.
Gabrielle Birchak: And keep the math brain going.
Kate Ertmann: Exactly.
Gabrielle Birchak: Exactly. So I don’t know how to close this out because I’m having so much fun and I don’t wanna hang up, but I guess I should stop recording now. Okay. Okay.
…
and that brings us to the end of today’s episode with the brilliant Kate Ertmann.

If you loved our conversation and wanna keep exploring math in a fun and accessible way be sure to check out her blog at KateLovesMath.com. There you’ll find her Mathnificent Word of the day where she breaks down quirky, surprising and thought provoking mathematical terms and shows how they apply to real life.
You can also find her information on her speaking and you can reach out to her through that website. Again, it is KateLovesMath.com. It’s a fantastic blog. I’m a big fan, obviously. You can also follow Kate on social media. Just search for Kate Loves Math on your favorite platforms to get your daily dose of math and wisdom and wit.
As always, thank you for tuning into Math! Science! History!. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe. Leave a review and share it with fellow math and science enthusiasts. And remember, math isn’t just in textbooks. It’s in the way we think, the way we create and the way we shape the world around us.
And in today’s case, it’s also a phenomenal way to start a friendship. Until next time, Carpe diem.
SHOW NOTES
🔎 Episode Overview
In this episode of Math! Science! History!, I sit down with the brilliant and engaging Kate Ertmann, the mathematician and storyteller behind Kate Loves Math. We discuss her fascinating journey from professional actress to 3D animation entrepreneur to organizational designer—ultimately landing in the world of math communication. Kate shares how math is embedded in everything, from human relationships to business structures, and how she embraces the power of chaos in life. Plus, we brainstorm an new podcast idea?!
🧠 What You’ll Learn:
- How math is a universal language that connects tech, business, and creative minds.
- The surprising truth about chaos—why it isn’t randomness, but a structured system with patterns.
- How embracing imposter syndrome and finding your unique voice can empower you in any field.
🏛 Links & Resources:
🔗 Website: KateLovesMath.com
📩 Sign up for her Mathnificent Words newsletter for inspiring math insights!
📚 Get her top 10 recommended math books when you subscribe.
📱 Follow Kate on:
LinkedIn: Kate Ertmann
BlueSky: @katelovesmath (subject to change)
Instagram & Facebook (when she feels like it!)
🌍 Let’s Connect!
Website: mathsciencehistory.com
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mathsciencehistory.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/math.science.history
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Selections from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers
Until next time, carpe diem!