Friday Picks

A big juicy helping of potpourri this week:

1)  Quantum mechanics now violating the pigeonhole principle? It's oft-said that if you think you 'understand' quantum mechanics, then you don't, because it isn't comprehensible; and now this adds to the confusion:
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/you-shouldn%E2%80%99t-try-pigeonhole-quantum-physics

2)  Long, interesting post from Tim Gowers… math over my head, but still interesting just for the glimpse it gives of how his mind operates:
http://gowers.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/mini-monomath/

3)  I'll give another plug to these folks, who are trying to make a documentary around the topic of networks and Bacon-Erdös numbers:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/395786474/erdos-bacon

4)  Vi Hart explains transcendental numbers, the number line… and darts, as only she can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swm8tTLWirU&feature=youtu.be
...and h/t to Evelyn Lamb for pointing out this arXiv contribution from Vi Hart (and Henry Segerman) on the symmetry of quaternions:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.6596v1.pdf
(does Vi have other publications/submissions?)
Evelyn's own take on the work, btw, is here (from May): http://tinyurl.com/lrfqd6m

5)  A survey is being conducted to study the philosophical intuitions of mathematicians "relating to the objects and methodology of mathematics." If you are a mathematician and can take time to participate please go here (they'd like as large a sample as possible, so feel free to pass on to others also):
http://goo.gl/Gu5S4E

6)  Another teacher reports their experience flipping the classroom (geometry):
http://www.siemensstemacademy.com/index.cfm?event=showBlogPost&c=&postid=2240

7)  Not for the first time, the argument that we ought drop calculus from high school curricula to make room for computer programming and statistics courses, is made:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2014/07/17/should-we-stop-teaching-calculus-in-high-school/

8)  A little bit of Boolean algebra history:
http://www.businessinsider.com/boolean-algebra-computers-2014-7

9)  "Why Do Americans Stink At Math?" …more math education debate from the NY Times:
http://tinyurl.com/n76cl6v
Meanwhile, in the Common Core debate, a California teacher pleads with parents to come view her classroom, before making up their minds:
http://fawnnguyen.com/come-observe/

10)  Cliff Pickover's newest offering, coming out in time for Christmas, looks like a pleaser for readers here, "The Mathematics Devotional":
http://tinyurl.com/m42v7eq

11)  In honor of the Martin Gardner centennial this year, interviews with Martin Gardner (accessible online); always good stuff:
http://martin-gardner.org/Interviews.html
In case you missed it, you can also visit the little carnival game of Martin Gardner's I offered at Math-Frolic this week:
http://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2014/07/lil-game-from-martin-gardner.html

12)  There's a film based on Alan Turing's life, "The Imitation Game," on the way, and James Grime (for The Aperiodical) has it covered:
http://aperiodical.com/2014/07/an-alan-turing-expert-watches-the-the-imitation-game-trailer/

13)  A Forbes writer summarizes Keith Devlin's view of the future of math (good overview!):
http://ow.ly/zy5gS 

14)  MathMunch honors Bill Thurston's creative math mind in their latest post:
http://mathmunch.org/2014/07/23/zippergons-high-fashion-and-really-big-numbers/ 

15)  Of airplane crashes and statistics:
http://understandinguncertainty.org/another-tragic-cluster-how-surprised-should-we-be

16)  Finally, great new (90-min.) interview from "7th Avenue Project" with Stanford mathematician Persi Diaconis this week (thanks to Noson Yanofsky for passing it along to me):
http://7thavenueproject.com/post/92353298895/persi-diaconis-magic-mathematics
(includes talk of Steve Martin, magic, James Randi, Ricky Jay, stealing, and oh yeah, a smidgen of math, but really more magic)
 In fact what better way to head into the weekend than by re-visiting Steve Martin as "The Great Flydini," an act it turns out Persi, believe-it-or-not, was partially responsible (or to blame) for: