...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, September 25, 2015

Math, Math... and More Math


Bursting at the seams this week:

1)  John Pavlus tries to explain, very briefly, why P vs. NP is such a big deal:
https://johnpavlus.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/p-versus-np-in-a-nutshell-and-why-its-fascinating/

2)  Another recreational math book to look forward to (but unfortunately not due out 'til January 2016, not in time for the holiday season):
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/09/19/coming-soon-2/

3)  Keith Devlin has recommended the following site for some online math:
https://www.citizenmaths.com/#how-does-it-work
(I don't have any experience with it except that Dr. Devlin recommends it)

4)  Speaking of Keith, another Devlin podcast interview (38-min.), this time with Hemant Mehta:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/09/20/friendly-atheist-podcast-episode-73-dr-keith-devlin-mathematics-communicator-and-author/ 

5)  An interesting little problem, you may have missed, from DataGenetics this week:
http://datagenetics.com/blog/september42015/index.html

6)  "Mathematics Rising" blog considers the thoughts of Vladimir Voevodsky, homotypy theory, and the future of mathematics:
http://mathrising.com/?p=1328

7)  Tim Gowers wrote about Terry Tao's recent solution to the Erdős discrepancy problem:
https://gowers.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/edp28-problem-solved-by-terence-tao/

....and "Gödel's Last Letter..." covers it well here:
https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/frogs-and-lily-pads-and-discrepancy/

8)  Venturing over to physics briefly, Peter Woit posts about Nima Arkani-Hamed and the future of physics:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8002

9)  Guardian review of latest Alex Bellos effort, a coloring book not just for kids:
http://tinyurl.com/puupuk9

....and Aperiodical reviews it here:
http://aperiodical.com/2015/09/review-snowflake-seashell-star-by-alex-bellos-edmund-harriss/

10)  Using "Which one doesn't belong" in the classroom:
https://fivetwelvethirteen.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/which-one-doesnt-belong-three-weeks-in/
 
11)  Do you enjoy Ben Orlin's writing, drawing, perspectives?... then you'll enjoy hearing him in this 15-min. podcast:
http://challengingopinions.com/2015/09/challenging-opinions-episode-four-ben-orlin/

12)  More math education discussion/debate in NY Times:
http://tinyurl.com/pvz4d2c

13)  The world of Web algorithms:
http://tinyurl.com/ohesvl2 

...and Marcus du Sautoy on the same subject:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3sg9qt?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=BBC_iWonder 
 
14)  A link from Math-Frolic earlier in week that I think worth reiterating -- Lior Pachter's post on possible problems for Common Core:
https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/unsolved-problems-with-the-common-core/


Potpourri BONUS! (extra NON-mathematical links of interest):

1)  Don't know how many of you have already seen this video that went semi-viral a couple weeks back, of an (extinct) pterosaur flying over Idaho! -- I just saw it this week and thought it was fun (despite its flaws)... most are presuming it's CGI (or some think it's a kite), but I'd find it more interesting if it's a drone dressed up in pterosaur garb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YreRe_vkTp4
(if anyone has learned an official, definite explanation let us know; I've seen plenty of speculation)

2)  More monkeying with the copyright law:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/22/monkey-selfies-copyright-lawsuit-peta

==> per usual, please let me know of any broken/incorrect links ASAP

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