Friday's Big Grab Bag

LOTSA links to ponder!:

1)  Fun Evelyn Lamb post that predicts your personality:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/kisrhombile-tiling-rorschach-test/
(next week, watch for her new horoscope column for Scientific American.... kidding!)

2)  A new "Math Teachers At Play" blog carnival here:
http://blog.ifem.co.uk/maths-teachers-at-play-88/

3)  Just a few of the many wrap-ups from last week's successful Twitter Math Camp in southern California:

http://samjshah.com/2015/07/27/my-thoughts-about-the-evolution-of-the-mtbos-2015-edition/
http://www.teachesmath.com/?p=795
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlHf06upPDo

(p.s. -- from what I've read, Fawn Nguyen has earned a lifetime appointment as Keynote-Speaker-To-The-World-Of-Math-Teachers! -- I hear-tell that her address was Fun, Useful, Charismatic, and Knowledgeable -- uhh, just telling what I've been hearing folks...)

4)  Close enough to math to get a mention here... Peter Woit's positive review of physicist Frank Wilczek's new book, "A Beautiful Question":
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7881

5)  And a new Alex Bellos book is on the way in September:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Snowflake-Seashell-Star-Adventures-Numberland/dp/1782117881

6)  Applying infinity to spiral optics:
http://skullsinthestars.com/2015/07/24/infinite-hotels-in-swirling-beams-of-light/

7)  From "Gödel's Lost Letter..." a (longish) bit on Raymond Smullyan, and chess-playing (human and otherwise):
https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/playing-chess-with-the-devil/

8)  If you like mixing in some biology with your math/statistics, then some interesting commentary from Gelman here:
http://ow.ly/Qbnbj
(it all relates back to a highly-discussed 2-month-old Lior Pachter post HERE.)

9)  The latest Journal of Humanistic Mathematics edition is available online:
http://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/

10)  Ben Orlin explores infinite series some more:
http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2015/07/29/where-the-laws-no-longer-hold/

11)  A puzzle via Terry Tao:
http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/tao/?_r=1

12)  And a somewhat classic Futility Closet problem:
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2015/07/29/knife-act/

13)  Not for beginners, but some Category Theory expounded here:
https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2015/07/internal_languages_of_higher_c.html

14)  Richard Green with some observations on the Ulam Sequence:
https://plus.google.com/101584889282878921052/posts/KthXFvoHbyX

15)  Quanta Magazine with a probability conundrum for its latest splendid monthly puzzle:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150730-the-slippery-eel-of-probability/


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

1)  Half-hour interview with E.O. Wilson on Jim Al-Khalili's "The Life Scientific" podcast series:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0639kzv

Lastly, just to show how little times have changed, this 1950's quote from Adlai Stevenson:

"I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." ;-)