...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, January 23, 2015

The Friday Wrap-up


This Week's Grab-bag:

1)  An overview of the recent JMM meetings in San Antonio from Jordan Ellenberg: 
http://tinyurl.com/oyh9lq4

2)  This is a bit involved, but if set theory, logic, and paradoxes are your things than this post from Matt Baker may keep you occupied for awhile:
http://tinyurl.com/pw24nxg

3)  Another convert/enthusiast to the "flipped classroom":
http://fliplearnshare.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-love-with-flipping-again.html

meanwhile, Robert Talbert shared some of his evolving thoughts about the flipped classroom here:
http://tinyurl.com/nezn3h4

4)  A long statistical read from Deborah Mayo on questionable research practices (using a specific case as an example) and statistical power analysis:
http://tinyurl.com/mav9szg

also this week, Deborah re-ran a 2013 "statistical dirty laundry" post (more on research methodology than technical statistics):
http://errorstatistics.com/2015/01/21/some-statistical-dirty-laundry-2/

5)  Presh Talwalkar shows multiple solutions to a geometric puzzle he had previously posed:
http://tinyurl.com/n8mxdy3

6)  Interesting little discussion of math grading (and a Robert Talbert approach):
https://symmetricblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/talbert-was-right-i-was-wrong/

7)  Fun with "Plateau's Laws," surfaces, and bubbles:
http://thatsmaths.com/2015/01/22/plateaus-problem-and-double-bubbles/

8) And having fun with sequences here:
http://tinyurl.com/mf4tvv2

9)   A little overview of the Polymath Project from Peter Cameron:
https://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/2015/01/22/polymath/

10)   Patrick Honner tells how we can (and should) learn from technology failures, in this recently-uploaded YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRT3QIt7w20

11)  MikesMathPage, always worth checking out:  http://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/


...lastly,  a book-note: usually I just recommend popular math books here, but once-in-awhile come across a book I like so much or believe so useful I want to be sure readers are aware of it. Recently out, "Pogue's Basics," is one such volume. David Pogue has long been a favorite tech writer and this new volume of helpful hints -- what he terms "essential tips and shortcuts that no one bothers to tell you" -- is just a great little compilation of handy computer tips. It covers both Macs and Windows (not other systems directly), and while computer pros may not learn too much from it, I imagine most average computer users, and certainly newbies, will gain plenty of pointers. I turned down page corners, as I quickly read through it, to mark all the tips I wanted to go back and try out, and ended up with around 40 dog-eared corners.


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