...a companion blog to "Math-Frolic," specifically for interviews, book reviews, weekly-linkfests, and longer posts or commentary than usually found at the Math-Frolic site.

*********************************************************************************************
"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show." ---Bertrand Russell (1907) Rob Gluck

"I have come to believe, though very reluctantly, that it [mathematics] consists of tautologies. I fear that, to a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-legged animal is an animal." ---Bertrand Russell (1957)

******************************************************************** Rob Gluck

Monday, June 29, 2015

Siobhan Roberts... Playing With Geniuses


 Math-Frolic Interview #33

 John Conway is, by any standard, a very remarkable man, and he well deserves a remarkable biography, which this book undoubtedly is. Siobhan Roberts expertly conjures up a genuine picture of the man and his amazing world.  
—Roger Penrose


If you don't already know the name Siobhan Roberts it's probably just a matter of a little more time. She is an award-winning Canadian journalist, writing on science matters, and the buzz is rapidly building over her forthcoming book (by mid-July), a biography of John Conway, "Genius At Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway." Some of the promotion for the book calls Conway, "Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, and Richard Feynman all rolled into one." I'm delighted to have contacted Siobhan prior to the book's release, and have a little of the backstory....

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1)  What was your path to becoming a freelance writer and author, and what, if any, other positions do you currently hold? (Please include some recounting of how your interest in science/math came about, and any pertinent academic background.)

Well, for better or for worse, I don’t have any formal background in math or science. I started out with a degree in history, followed by a masters in journalism. Then I worked at the National Post in Toronto, as an intern and a reporter and features writer. The Post was Conrad Black’s paper, and in order to avoid doing some of the capital ‘C’ conservative and capital ‘H’ hair-brained stories my new editors liked to assign, I realized it was always a good idea to have a stash of my own stories in the works. One such story featured the Archimedes palimpsest, which was auctioned off at Christie’s and underwent restoration at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore circa 2000. Working on that piece brought me back to my passion for math and science — in high school I’d taken all the math and science courses I could (though oddly enough, math was my worst subject by far), as well as all the arts course, and then I flipped a coin and did my BAH. So Archimedes brought about a reunification of the arts and sciences in my approach to writing. At the Post I started looking for other mathy stories. I Googled “Toronto geometer” and the search results came up all Coxeter — the great classical geometer Donald Coxeter, who was then 93. I wrote a feature for the newspaper on Coxeter, followed by a magazine profile, and then I sold the Coxeter biography, which was my first book. That’s how I began freelancing, on the coattails of Donald Coxeter.

2)  You've written three biographies, of engineer Alan Davenport, famed-geometer Coxeter, and now John Conway... how did you happen to choose those three brilliant figures; is there a common thread between them?

Inadvertently, so to speak, one common thread is that all three men went to Cambridge. But it was Coxeter, of course, who led me to Conway. And Conway pushed me down the rabbit hole. As the New Yorker writer Kathryn Schulz noted in her recent piece about falling down rabbit holes: “In its most purely Carrollian sense… to fall down a rabbit hole means to stumble into a bizarre and disorienting alternate reality.” Hanging out with Conway for several years certainly was bizarre at times, and often disorienting, but also huge fun.

...Wow, I didn't realize you were 'hanging out with him for several years' -- what a great stint!

3)  Do you have another biographical subject in mind to do next, or more generally, another topic already lined up to write a book about? 
And a just-for-fun question: if you could go back in time to meet and talk with (and perhaps write a biography of), any famous deceased mathematician, who might be your first choice?

I do have a few ideas percolating, but nothing I’m committing to yet.

As for someone I’d like to travel back in time and talk to, my first thought is a trip not too far back to say 'Hello' to John Nash. He was around and about at the Princeton math department while I was working on Conway’s biography. He’d saunter through the common room, always looking dapper and genial, I thought. He’d peer over to see what we were up to squirreled away in an alcove. Conway would extend his greetings and I’d nod his way. But I never got up the nerve to introduce myself and ask him a few questions.

4)  Over time you've interviewed many top-notch mathematicians [see HERE], who work in technical areas you may not fully grasp... is it at all intimidating for you to sit and chat with such individuals, or does the thrill of speaking with them easily trump any such intimidation?  And more particularly, I'm sure readers would enjoy briefly hearing what your time spent with John Conway was like?

I once asked Conway’s good Cambridge friend Mike Guy what it was like to work with Conway, and he summed it up best: “Crazy!” Though all the craziness proved to be good fodder.

Conway was extremely generous with this time in helping me grasp the more technical details, or at least get the general gist of things. Conway loves to talk, he loves to tell his vast repertoire of tales, and he is a consummate explainer. So he was the perfect subject. I don’t think I am intimidated by my ignorance in the face of top-notch expertise so much as I’m shameless. I throw myself on the mercy of the court. I ask a lot of (ostensibly stupid) questions. And many of the questions I ask many, many, many times. I circle around things until I’ve got a semi-coherent intuitive understanding. At least that is how it feels to me. Then I go back and fact-check, and correct all the nuances that I inevitably got wrong.

5)  Who, are your own favorite science/math authors to read?

Right now I’m loving The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua. Freeman Dyson’s Disturbing the Universe is a classic that I like revisiting —Dyson is a master of simple elegant writing. Ditto James Gleick — I’m looking forward to his next book, about time travel.
Thanks for the heads-up about Gleick's next book, and Dyson is actually an incredibly fascinating figure for a biography himself (I'm aware of one bio already out on him).

6)  If someone is not familiar with your writing are there a few Web-accessible pieces you'd recommend to anyone wishing to sample your work?

I recently added an archive of some of my favorite pieces to my website: http://www.siobhanroberts.com/category/articles/

7)  To round yourself out a bit, when you're not researching/writing sciency-stuff, what are some of your other main interests/hobbies/activities?

I read, mostly fiction. At the moment I’m on a David Mitchell jag —I started with his new book, The Bone Clocks, and then Black Swan Green, and now I’m wading into Cloud Atlas. I also like reading cookbooks (Nigel Slater, David Lebovitz, Gabrielle Hamilton). And because I like cooking and I sit around writing so much, I run, and I do yoga to purge the angst.

8)  Will end with a freebie for you ;-)...  What would you like readers to know about your upcoming Conway biography, that you haven't already said above? And will you be doing a book tour?

Indeed, there shall be a book tour! In two parts. For the summer I’ll be on the math train, doing the conference circuit:  Bridges in Baltimore, MoMATH MOVES in NYC, and MathFest in Washington, D.C., and then Conway and I are topping it off with a joint talk at NYC Google headquarters, where I’ll interview him on the subject of why he hates the Game of Life (it’s a love/hate thing, depending on his mood). 
In the fall, when school’s back in session, I’ll launch the book officially at Ben McNally Books in Toronto, followed by Princeton (details TBA), as well as an alumni panel talk with Gary Giddins at the Leon Levy Center for Biography, in October back in New York City. And I’m hoping to make it to Michele Emmer’s Mathematics & Culture conference next March in Venice. Since it took more than a lustrum (to borrow one of Conway’s favorite words) to write Genius At Play, I figure the “book tour” can drag on for a while.
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I suspect "Genius At Play" will be one of the most heralded/covered math-related books of the entire year -- you've picked a topic that can't miss! Thanks for giving us a little insight into it, Siobhan, and have a super book tour. 
[My review of the book now up HERE.]
American Scientist Magazine did a prior interview with Siobhan awhile back focused more around her work on Donald Coxeter:
http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/siobhan-roberts


Of course, you can pre-order on Amazon, if you don't want to wait for it in your local bookstore:


   

Friday, June 26, 2015

Friday Math Mix


Bits of math from the week:

1)  Braess's Paradox from Brian Hayes and American Scientist:
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2015/4/playing-in-traffic

2)  If you haven't already read Jim Henle's "The Proof and the Pudding," this piece by Jim may spur you to do so:
https://theconversation.com/mathematics-spaghetti-alla-carbonara-and-you-42650

3)  Evelyn Lamb on "Cantor's Leaky Tent" (yeah, I'd never heard of it either):
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/a-few-of-my-favorite-spaces-cantor-s-leaky-tent/

4)  You should be listening to Krista Tippett's "On Being" NPR radio show each week, but if not, last week she re-ran an episode with astronomer/author Mario Livio:
http://onbeing.org/program/mario-livio-mysteries-of-an-expanding-universe/244

5)  What would a weekly linkfest be without an entry for Jordan Ellenberg... this time on the wonderful Slate Money Podcast of all places! (which includes Mathbabe, Cathy O'Neil):
http://tinyurl.com/qx97hkf

6)  Michael Pershan with a post on "recursive" versus "relational" thinking:
http://mathmistakes.org/recursive-and-relational-thinking-and-the-feedback-each-deserves/

7)  If you're into complexity and P vs. NP then this Motherboard piece (on "edit distance") is probably also of interest:
http://tinyurl.com/pxs9ljo

8) 
Keith Devlin was among several guests on the Diane Rehm Show this week discussing digital games and education:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2015-06-23/how-digital-games-can-help-kids-learn

9) 
Ben Orlin striking my funny bone:
http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2015/06/24/mathemacomics/ 


10)  And just linking to this as a public service announcement (scam conferences):
https://xianblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/whazzat-scam-conferences-inc/

11)  More problems with Common Core, statistics, and specifically, EngageNY:
http://youdothemathkthrucalculus.blogspot.com/2015/06/problems-with-common-core-and-engageny.html

12)  Ok, straying a bit farther afield from mathematics, Scott Aaronson speculates on what quantum computing may tell us about quantum mechanics:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/?p=2204

13)  And on a more mystical note, one ought not miss George Johnson's NY Times' essay on "Humankind's Existentially Lucky Numbers":
http://tinyurl.com/o9f5hny


Have a great weekend and come back here on Monday when I'll be chatting with Siobhan Roberts (well, chatting via cyberspace that is: Math-Frolic Interview #33). If you don't already know who Siobhan is, I think you'll be seeing her name a lot in coming months.

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

1)  From last week's TEDRadioHour, Sean Carroll attempts to explain "why does time exist at all":
http://www.npr.org/2015/06/19/415003106/why-does-time-exist

2)  More philosophy than math, nice Aeon piece on the nature of causality (if it even exists):
http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/could-we-do-without-cause-and-effect/


Friday, June 19, 2015

Linkfest


... 51 years ago, this weekend, three young civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were brutally murdered during an ill-fated trip to Mississippi. In light of the past week's further solemn events in the American South, I feel a need to reach back momentarily to this mid-60's tribute from Paul Simon to Andy Goodman:



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Now, on to the week's mathy stuff you mighta missed:

1) "The language of insignificance"... more p-value discussion courtesy of Andrew Gelman:
http://andrewgelman.com/2015/06/13/the-language-of-insignificance/

2)  In time for the NBA finals (well, now over) the "hot hand" streak discussed:
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8719731/hot-hand-fallacy

3)  Nature, behavior, and mathematics, from "Mathematics Rising":
http://mathrising.com/?p=1286

4)  "Some statistical dirty laundry" (via Deborah Mayo):
http://errorstatistics.com/2015/06/14/some-statistical-dirty-laundry-the-tilberg-stapel-report-on-flawed-science/

5)  Last weekend's RadioLab re-played a segment with Steve Strogatz (with an assist from Sesame Street) explaining some of math's foundations (first ~14 mins. below):
http://www.radiolab.org/story/161758-break-cycle/

6)  Jordan Ellenberg and Matt Parker discuss some basic math... or, is it philosophy... on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/rT1sIVqonE8

7)  And here, the ubiquitous Ellenberg writes about "Common Core" for the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/opinion/meet-the-new-common-core.html

...finally (talk about ubiquitous), here is Jordan, or one of his clones, on Bloomberg Business this week:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-06-18/each-dot-represents-an-economist-s-forecast-ellenberg

8)  The story of mathematicians (who are often "crotchety old people") hoarding a specific brand of chalk (that has now gone out-of-business). Who knew...:
http://gizmodo.com/why-mathematicians-are-hoarding-this-special-type-of-ja-1711008881

9)  Submissions to the latest "Carnival of Math" are here:
http://mathematicalmysterytour.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/carnival-of-mathematics-number-123-part_17.html

10)  Will just note that one of my favorite 2015 books, "Single Digits" (by Marc Chamberland), which I reviewed back in March, is just this month showing up widely in bookstores.

11)  H/T to Dave Richeson this week for linking to this wonderful, old posting of the "World's shortest explanation of Gödel's theorem" (from Raymond Smullyan):
http://blog.plover.com/math/Gdl-Smullyan.html

12)  And Mike Lawler has at east 5 posts this week you can catch up on at:
https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/ 

13)  Will close out with this recent geometry problem from "Solve My Maths":
http://solvemymaths.com/2015/06/18/concentric-circle-problem/



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

1)  In time for Father's Day this Sunday, "This American Life" re-ran this older, touching story of a daughter and her father who may be a tad communicatively-challenged:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/438/fathers-day-2011?act=2#play

2)  And what the heck, as long as I'm on "This American Life," I'll cite another of my all-time favorite episodes, going all the way back to 2001, chronicling the Jarvis family:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/177/american-limbo?act=1#play



Friday, June 12, 2015

Weekly Links


Math-related stuff you might've missed:

1)  From "Better Explained," one of the best learning sites on the Web, some discussion of the importance of intuition in learning:
http://betterexplained.com/articles/intuition-isnt-optional/

2)  "Futility Closet," succinctly, on Erdös et.al.'s 'friendship theorem":
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2015/06/06/the-friendship-theorem/

3)  86th edition of the "Math Teachers At Play" blog carnival:
http://zenomath.org/math-teachers-at-play/

4)  Mistakes, biases, and computer algorithms, from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/06/07/412481743/what-makes-algorithms-go-awry

5)  "SolveMyMaths" website linked to this BBC page of "bitesize" clips on 'the history and culture of maths':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/topics/znj2tfr

6)  FQXi announced the winners of their 2015 essay contest on the question "What is the mysterious connection between physics and mathematics?":
http://fqxi.org/community/essay/winners/2015.1
(haven't had time yet, but look forward to digging into some of these!)

7)  An economist complains about the trending "mathiness" within economics:
http://timharford.com/2015/06/down-with-mathiness/

8)  A mathematician works on the still-mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Flight MH370's:
http://www.inquisitr.com/2157346/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-math-prof/

9)  Triangles, the Triangulation Conjecture, and proof:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/06/10/4251713.htm

10) 
IF you're fond of the technical, mathematical aspects of chess you may enjoy this post on the "value" of the various playing pieces:
http://www.sumsar.net/blog/2015/06/big-data-and-chess/

11)  Correlation vs. causation?... One blogger writes about THIS study report:
http://models.street-artists.org/2015/06/10/more-nonsense-from-epidemiology/

12)  A mathematician extols the value of liberal arts education:
http://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/science-students-need-the-liberal-arts/

13)  John McGowan on the Corinthian College scandal and STEM 'crisis':
http://math-blog.com/2015/06/12/the-corinthian-colleges-scandal-stem-shortage-claims-and-minorities/

14)  For those interested in such matters, a long, rich post from Lior Pachter following up on his prior contest regarding p-values:
https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/i-was-wrong/


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

1)  Last weekend's TEDRadioHour, about "listening," included this wonderful 18-min. piece from Dave Isay founder of StoryCorps (which has grown far wider than I realized, and earned Dave a $1 million TED prize!). If you're not already familiar with the StoryCorps phone app. be sure to listen to the end to learn about it:
http://www.npr.org/2015/06/05/411734279/how-do-we-change-when-we-really-listen-to-the-people-we-love

2)  From The Moth, one woman's story of leaving the Mormon Church:
http://themoth.org/posts/stories/the-box


Friday, June 5, 2015

First Potpourri of June


This week's mix of math miscellany:

1)  Friedman equations, prime numbers, cyclic universes, etc....
http://www.space.com/29517-is-the-big-bang-cycling-through-time.html

2)  Last week, a wonderful "Doing The Math" episode of PRI's "To the Best of Our Knowledge":
http://www.ttbook.org/book/doing-math-updated

3)  Numberphile/James Grime put up a video in tribute to John Nash last weekend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qu3WETuf6c

4)  2015 Shaw Laureates in mathematics named:
http://www.shawprize.org/en/shaw.php?tmp=3&twoid=98&threeid=245&fourid=446

5)  Steven Strogatz and student Danielle Toupo use 'rock-paper-scissors' to explain evolutionary games:
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/05/rock-paper-scissors-may-explain-evolutionary-games-nature

6)  David Bressoud on "the rush to calculus" (in high school):
http://launchings.blogspot.com/2015/06/calculus-at-crisis-ii-rush-to-calculus.html

7)  Nautilus covers some backstory of Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem:
http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/how-maths-most-famous-proof-nearly-broke

8)  Keith Devlin's latest on the results of educational competency/skills assessment across the globe:
http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2015/06/piacc-pisa-for-grown-ups.html

9)  For those who feel that teachers are forever under-appreciated read this post to warm your heart's cockles (whatever those are):
http://mathequalslove.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-key-to-city.html

10) Some bookish notes:

a)  Review of David Spiegelhalter's "Sex By Numbers: What Statistics Can Tell Us About Sexual Behaviour" here:
 http://tinyurl.com/qz63zf8

b)  A (Scientific American) podcast interview with Eugenia Cheng, author of "How To Bake Pi":
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/take-a-bite-out-of-the-math-of-math/

...and another review of Cheng's book here:
http://tinyurl.com/naawmp4

c)  I received a review copy of "Creating Symmetry" by Frank Farris, a beautifully-presented volume for anyone trained in math with a special interest in symmetry (especially as it relates to art). At first glance it looks like a coffee-table book (a category I'm not fond of) -- large, square-ish, glossy, but upon opening, it includes more detailed, creative text than pictures and is packed with significant mathematics (of 17 possible wallpaper types and beyond). This is NOT a volume for a general audience, but for those well-trained in math with a special interest in symmetry (a topic that interests a LOT of math fans).
The book has all the usual Princeton University Press polish, and for selected individuals will be a nice addition to their shelf.

11)  Probability does not exist... it will go the way of phlogiston, witches, elves and fairies"... That's just one of the fascinating lines from Quanta Magazine and Amanda Gefter in another excellent article on quantum theory, this time focusing on QBism (or "quantum Bayesianism") from Christopher Fuchs. Great piece!:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150604-quantum-bayesianism-qbism/

Talking about the new ideas Fuchs ends with, "It might take us 25 years to get the mathematics right, but in 25 years let’s have this conversation again!"

12)  Speaking of probability, Deborah Mayo once again on the replication crisis in psychology:
http://errorstatistics.com/2015/06/04/what-would-replication-research-under-an-error-statistical-philosophy-be/ 

13)  Another excellent podcast (47-min.), from The Guardian, with Jordan Ellenberg (includes Alex Bellos):
http://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2015/jun/05/mathematics

14)  Mike Lawlers' place on the Web, busy-as-always:  https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/

15)  Finally, if you need a good laugh (actually several of them) be sure to read Fawn Nguyen's account of what her summer will be like (if nothing else you'll learn that there are 56 breweries in Portland, Oregon):
http://fawnnguyen.com/not-that-you-care-about-my-schedule/


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

1)  Scott Aaronson on the Singularity, suffering, and the future:
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2307

2)  Capitalism gone awry (again)... the "dark side of for-profit colleges":
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2015/06/02/class-dismissed-the-dark-side-of-for-profit-colleges/