Big Bag of Weekly Links

The math bits I didn't much cover at Math-Frolic this week (and quite a varied selection I must say!)...

1)  Only one topic to start a wrap-up of this week with: that Singapore logic conundrum...

Ever-instructive and smiling James Grime covers the possible answers (depending on semantics) in this video:
http://singingbanana.tumblr.com/post/116546302907/via-cheryls-birthday-problem-it-depends-on

And among his multiple postings for the week, Mike Lawler talked through the puzzle with his two young logicians:
https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/the-viral-logic-puzzle-from-singapore/

It's been fascinating (sometimes exasperating) reading the comments at various sites regarding this interesting, if not greatly-worded problem, which has different sticking points for different people. I wish I'd kept a list of the sites that did a good, clear job (many didn't) explaining the tricky reasoning involved.

Anyway, if by now you're bored with the Singapore problem, you're free to move on to the next level:
http://tinyurl.com/p68mlp3

A-A-AND, even Fields Medalist Timothy Gowers gets into the act here:
https://plus.google.com/+TimothyGowers0/posts/Ak3Fnw8dvBk

2) moving on, +Plusmaths Magazine discusses the nature of proofs:
https://plus.maths.org/content/brief-introduction-proofs

3)  Steven Strogatz pointed to 40 math modules developed at Cornell for middle and HS teachers & students... he calls them "fantastic"... that's enough to get MY attention:
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/

4)  Also, this week Math Munch took all of its inspiration from Strogatz:
http://mathmunch.org/2015/04/15/continents-math-explorers-club-and-i-use-math-for/

5)   The "Texas sharpshooter fallacy" and big data:
https://hilbertthm90.wordpress.com/author/hilbertthm90/

6)  If you missed this week's PBS Nova episode, "The Great Math Mystery," you can view it online:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365464997/
One blogger reviewed it here:
http://www.abstractmath.org/Word%20Press/?p=9719

7)  Some followup, from Regina Nuzzo, to one psychology journal's "cold turkey" decision to drop p-values from their pages:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-perturbed-by-loss-of-stat-tool-to-sift-research-fudge-from-fact/

8)  An interview (about books) with Freeman Dyson... only slight mathematical content, but always interesting to hear from him (h/t to Jordan Ellenberg for this one)... though disappointing he's unable to name a single math book of recent times as a good book for lay readers... c'mon Freeman get with the times, there's some GREAT stuff out there!:
http://tinyurl.com/p6rhmpk

9)  Brian Hayes' first encounter with the algorithm of the IRS's Schedule D form... oh what joy!:
http://bit-player.org/2015/a-taxing-algorithm

10)  Futility Closet looks at a card game you have a 50/50 chance of winning and can't improve upon (...unless of course you're psychic):

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2015/04/17/say-red/ 

11)  For math teachers LOTS of reporting at the #NCTMBoston and #Shadowcon15 Twitter conference hashtags this week.

12)  And for 13 more mathy links check out the newest (121st) "Carnival of Mathematics":
https://lifethroughamathematicianseyes.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/carnival-of-mathematics-121/

13)  Lastly, for my recursive page of the week, a publisher finally gets it right:
 ow.ly/LDqP5

...Hope everyone finds at least a couple links suiting their interests among the above.


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

1)  Cats... and prisoners together:
https://www.thedodo.com/shelter-cats-in-prison-1088043678.html

2)  And in one of those oddball human stories that are hard to fathom, the 61-year-old postal worker who invaded Capitol Hill this week in a gyrocopter, with the best of intentions, explained what his purpose was via YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPVxPT4GGX0
(The fuller story here:  http://tinyurl.com/lpvb65b )

[...meanwhile, flying a gyrocopter to the Capitol must now be added to my lifetime-bucket list ;-) ]