Math Bits of the Week

Here and there:

1)  First, a fun little (economics) paradox over at Math-Frolic this morning:
http://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2015/07/gladly-paying-110-for-dollar-bill.html

2)  Conway.... J-J-John  Conway!:

ICYMI, last Monday I got to talk with Siobhan Roberts about her upcoming biography of John Conway:
http://mathtango.blogspot.com/2015/06/siobhan-roberts-playing-with-geniuses.html

...and in Nautilus this week Siobhan gives a taste of Conway in an excerpt from her book:
http://nautil.us/blog/this-early-computer-was-based-on-a-urinal-flush-mechanism

...finally, new from the Numberphile folks, more on "the brain of John Conway":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ARAxW2k_4

3)  Video of Ed Frenkel's talk this week on AI, Gödel, algorithms, pain, reality & more, at the Aspen Institute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbLI9aX5eVg

4)  Mark Chu-Carroll explaining "judgements" and type theory:
http://www.goodmath.org/blog/2015/06/26/truth-in-type-theory/

5)  A nice bit of Escher retrospective from Joselle Keyhoe here:
http://mathrising.com/?p=1293

6)  Some fun (and variation on an old probability quandary) from Andrew Gelman:
http://andrewgelman.com/2015/06/29/god-is-in-every-leaf-of-every-probability-puzzle/

7)  IF you're interested in the foundations of math, check out this recent post from Peter Cameron:
https://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/on-foundations/
(if you're not interested in foundations, probably skip it)

8)  A podcast interview with Katie Steckles on Sam Hansen's "Strongly Connected Connections":
http://www.acmescience.com/2015/07/scc-62-katie-steckles/

9)  Matt Parker gives a little tutorial on factorials:
http://aperiodical.com/2015/07/how-many-ways-to-shuffle-a-pack-of-cards/

10) This Steven Strogatz piece on IBL is almost a month old, but just came across it this week (h/t to Gary Davis):
https://www.artofmathematics.org/blogs/cvonrenesse/steven-strogatz-reflection-part-1

11)  I haven't found time to swing by Mike's Math Page this week... but am sure there's some good stuff THERE!

sidenote (heads-up!):  apparently Jordan Ellenberg, Jo Boaler, and Steve Strogatz will be on TODAY'S edition of NPR's "Science Friday."


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

1)  Some fascinating, paradoxical science (physics) from the always fascinating Natalie Wolchover:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150702-paradoxical-crystal-baffles-physicists/

2)  And another fun re-run segment from RadioLab last week on the magic of an old Australian radio show:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/you-are-judge/
 (actually, the entire hour-long "Black Box"episode of RadioLab is good)