...a companion blog to "Math-Frolic," specifically for interviews, book reviews, weekly-linkfests, and longer posts or commentary than usually found at the Math-Frolic site.

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"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show." ---Bertrand Russell (1907) Rob Gluck

"I have come to believe, though very reluctantly, that it [mathematics] consists of tautologies. I fear that, to a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-legged animal is an animal." ---Bertrand Russell (1957)

******************************************************************** Rob Gluck

Friday, August 1, 2014

Friday Potpourri


In case you missed 'em:

1)  Who doesn't love the Mandelbrot Set. As if enough hasn't already been written/presented about it on the Web, Numberphile comes along with another GREAT instructive piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGMRB4O922I&feature=youtu.be

2)  An extensive guide (pdf) for teaching secondary-level mathematics from a Brit educator:
http://education.lms.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/DMG_6_no_1_2014.pdf

3)  It's reported that reclusive math genius Gregori Perelman and his mother have left their digs in Russia for a small town in Sweden (where he can continue to turn down awards for his math work):
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/eccentric-math-genius-ditches-russia-for-sweden/504076.html

4)  Tackling math, the James Tanton way:
http://headinside.blogspot.com/2014/07/tackle-that-math-problem.html

5)   Film based on the life of Ramanujan going into production first week of August in UK:
http://tinyurl.com/klzfnzn

6)
   Some student math favorites from Dan Anderson (h/t to Mike Lawler for calling attention to this):
http://blog.recursiveprocess.com/2014/07/29/my-favorite-for-the-students/

7)  Likely useful for teachers: a new "open curriculum" site for lessons supportive of Common Core (h/t to Fawn Nguyen):
http://opencurriculum.org/browse/common-core/mathematics/

8)  A brand new, and once again, great, great column this morning from Keith Devlin, concerning people's misconception of mathematics, while continuing his crusade for "mathematical thinking," and against some of the "off-the-wall" parental conclusions regarding Common Core (he gives a big hat tip to Jordan Ellenberg as well). This is required weekend reading ;-) :
http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2014/08/most-math-problems-do-not-have-unique.html

9) Lastly, if you want a mental workout, here is Richard Wiseman's puzzle for this Friday:
"Can you create a 10-digit number, where the first digit is how many zeros in the number, the second digit is how many 1s in the number etc. until the tenth digit which is how many 9s in the number?"





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