Friday, March 20, 2015

More March Mathiness....


This week's BIG, bouncing collection of mathy goodness:

1)  You're likely all sick of hearing about pi by now, but I feel bad that so many of the best pi posts came out too late for my last Fri. potpourri, so will note a few of the plenitude:

a)  Steven Strogatz's New Yorker article on pi:

b)  from The Aperiodical:

c)  Alex Bellos interviewing the bloke who memorized 111,000+ digits of pi (...yeah, you read that right):

d)  a take from Doron Zeilberger, with pi as 'an equivalence class of many... algorithms':
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/Opinion142.html

 e)  and if that STILL isn't enough servings of pi for you, Evelyn Lamb rounded up a bunch more pi helpings here:
http://tinyurl.com/kh594jc

2)  Another New Yorker math piece, by Alec Wilkinson, launching from pi to the mystery of prime numbers: 

3)  "Playing With Math: Stories from Math Circles, Homeschoolers, and Passionate Teachers" edited by Sue VanHattum is ready for order:

4)  The traveling vacationer problem... so-to-speak:
http://tinyurl.com/llxehjq
And relatedly, from Futility Closet, a problem that at first seems very difficult, but with a lovely, simple answer:
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2015/03/19/end-state/

5)  Bill Gasarch asks, "Has anything interesting ever come out of a claimed proof that P=NP or P ≠ NP?":
http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/03/has-anything-interesting-every-come-out.html

6)  Cathy O'Neil announced the launch of "Data Justice Blog" early in the week -- in a time of big (and personal) data, the importance of eternal vigilance has probably never been greater:
http://mathbabe.org/2015/03/16/data-justice-launches/

7)  Robert Talbert encourages those interested in IBL or flipped classrooms to attend the annual "Legacy of R.L. Moore and IBL Conference" in Austin, TX. this coming June:
http://tinyurl.com/l25nlnn

8)  DataGenetics graphically goes over "Simpson's Paradox" (...no, not Homer or Bart):
http://datagenetics.com/blog/march22015/index.html

9)  Not to belabor the whole p-value bashing topic too much, but there is a lengthy discussion going on in the comments section of Deborah Mayo's site (among a few participants), following a guest-post that became the most highly-trafficked posting she's ever had:
http://errorstatistics.com/2015/03/16/stephen-senn-the-pathetic-p-value-guest-post/
and in related news, we're told that, lo-and-behold, "scientists unknowingly tweak experiments":
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-scientists-unknowingly-tweak.html

10)  One thing good about the NY State Regents Exams in mathematics -- it keeps giving Patrick Honner more good material for his blog:
http://mrhonner.com/archives/14706

11)  A lengthy discussion of PARCC testing was cross-posted by "mathbabe" and others:
http://mathbabe.org/2015/03/19/guest-post-a-discussion-on-parcc-testing/ 

12)  Of course, Mike Lawler worked through more interesting problems this week:  https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/

13)  Not really math, but h/t to Sean Carroll for pointing out this interesting piece arguing that there may be TOO MANY science studies currently being published:
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/17/8231395/too-many-studies

14)  ICYMI, I interviewed fantastic physics writer Natalie Wolchover last week at MathTango:
http://mathtango.blogspot.com/2015/03/natalie-wolchover-from-tiger-zoologist.html 
(...p.s., this upcoming Sunday will have ANOTHER new interview here... and for the first time, back-to-back females... stay tuned).

15)  And if you need still more math links for your weekend reading, the 120th "Carnival of Mathematics" is up here:
http://mathmisery.com/wp/2015/03/16/carnival-of-mathematics-120/


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

1)  Lovely profile of one of my (everybody's?) favorites, Jane Goodall:

2)  Per usual, another fascinating episode of NPR's RadioLab, this time covering some little-known history of America, Japan, and World War II:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/fu-go/



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