More or Less - Is this Premier League striker a secret maths genius?
Download Is this Premier League striker a secret maths genius?
Chelsea striker Liam Delap has recently stunned fans on Instagram by apparently doing incredibly complicated calculations in his head, finding what’s known as the cube root of some very large numbers.
But is he really a human calculator? Or is there something else going on? Tim Harford speaks to Rob Eastaway, mathematician and author of ‘Maths on the Back of an Envelope’ to learn about the trick you can use to pull this off - and while he’s here we also ask him about the trend of more goals being scored in the Premier League.
Presenter: Tim Harford Producers: Nathan Gower Series Producer: Tom Colls Editor: Richard Vadon Programme Coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Engineer: James Beard Credit: Video of Liam Delap from Chelsea’s Instagram account, chelseafc
Published on Saturday, 7th February 2026.
Available Podcasts from More or Less
We are not the BBC, we only list available podcasts. To find out more about the programme including episodes available on BBC iPlayer, go to the More or Less webpage.