Friday Bonanza

ICYMthem:

1)  Fun li'l anecdote about topologist Egbert Rudolf van Kampen from MathOverflow.net last week:
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/178104/a-topologist-is-not-a-mathematician-a-small-question

2)  New popular statistics (…I know, that sounds like an oxymoron! ;-)) book out from Gary Smith, "Standard Deviations":
http://tinyurl.com/poefeew
(haven't read it, but it's from a professor at my alma mater, so oughta be good)

3)  Another nice geometry puzzle from Presh Talwalkar this week:
http://tinyurl.com/m6pefvp

4)  Thoughts on problem-solving from Mike Lawler:
http://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/problem-solving/

5)  Not as much 'meat' here as I'd like, but still happy to see "recursion" (one of my favorite topics) wiggle its way into the popular press:
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/12/to-infinity-and-beyond/

6)  A little something from Vanderbilt on learning math and cognitive development:
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/08/math-teaching/

7)  Again, Common Core; this time, division of fractions:
http://tinyurl.com/mnwqyu4

8)  In the math-editorial genre, Doron Zeilberger is characteristically annoyed with something… and this time it's Max Tegmark:
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/Opinion138.html

9)  Meanwhile, Cathy O'Neil points us to a new information/assistance site, stemforums.com, that many may find useful:
http://tinyurl.com/m3qu2da

10)  Just notified that Alfred Posamentier and Ingmar Lehmann have a new book out, "Mathematical Curiosities" -- I feel fairly safe in predicting, it's GOOOD!:
http://tinyurl.com/o4glt93

11)  Will close out with a simple, fun Martin Gardner riddle tweeted by @WWMGT this week ;-):

"A bus leaves M for T at noon. An hour later a cyclist leaves T for M, moving slower. When bus and bike meet, which will be further from M?"


==> On a sidenote, CONGRATULATIONS to Numberphile for reaching 1 million subscribers on YouTube this past week… pretty impressive for a math site (and well-deserved)!!!
https://www.youtube.com/user/numberphile