End-of-Week Potpourri

(via Evan-Amos/WikimediaCommons)

The above will be my one-and-only indulgence to Pi Day hoopla  ;-)


Now onto this week's potpourri of math I didn't cover on my blogs:

1) Nice little introduction to the Langlands Program here:

http://thatsmaths.com/2014/03/13/the-langlands-program/

2) The 108th Carnival of Mathematics here:  http://mathhombre.blogspot.com/2014/03/carnival-of-mathematics-108.html

3) Short review (pluses and minuses) of a study of Khan Academy here:

http://blog.mathed.net/2014/03/results-from-sri-study-of-khan-academy.html

(the study itself is here: http://www.sri.com/work/publications/research-use-khan-academy-schools-research-brief )

4) If you're into the P vs. NP debate you should probably check out Scott Aaronson's long read:

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1720

5) From P vs. NP to the Riemann Hypothesis… someone has attempted to give a "Lucid Explanation of the Riemann Hypothesis" (…I know that sounds like an oxymoron), in barely a page:

http://blog.functionspace.org/news/lucid-explanation-of-the-riemann-hypothesis

6) and the ever-present Ed Frenkel likewise beautifully addresses the zeta function and Riemann Hypothesis via a Numberphile podcast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6c6uIyieoo

7) nice discussion of parity paradox from "Mind Your Decisions" here:

http://tinyurl.com/ownycam

8) Interesting to see that the UK now has a new initiative dedicated to teaching "maths numeracy" specifically to adults who lack it (do we need to attempt this in the U.S.?):

https://www.nnchallenge.org.uk/home/index.html

9) This "brussel sprouts" game from Numberphile (based on more Euler math) made it around several places last week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAss481FfAQ

10) In a tweet, Clifford Pickover informs folks that in randomly played games of tic-tac-toe "the probability that the first mover wins is 737/1260 or 0.584920" (maybe worth knowing)

and another tweet I'll pass along is from Keith Devlin: "the thinking you use to do a Sudoku puzzle is 100% mathematical thinking. Ditto for KenKen (my favorite airplane time passer)"  -- I like it 'cuz KenKen is also MY favorite (also like Kakuro, though Sudoku has never really grabbed me)

11) The sometimes inscrutable Vi Hart has done some odd microwave-timer countdown videos of late… and, losing audience-share -- what's THAT all about? In a blog post, Robert Krulwich tries to figure it out:  http://tinyurl.com/ou3dxwm