That Was the Math Week That Was

So much math, so little time....

1)  Jordan Ellenberg with another of those viral-type math probability problems (which he relates back to the 'hot-hand' controversy):
http://tinyurl.com/psexlp8

2)  And another problem, this time geometric, making some waves:
http://tinyurl.com/naqhkts

...and still some more monthly puzzles here:
http://teachfurthermaths.weebly.com/puzzle-of-the-month

3)  Evelyn Lamb gathered together a few of her scariest posts for Halloween last week:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/scary-math-zombies/

4)  "Mathematics Rising" blog once again on some of Gregory Chaitin's and David Deutsch's work:
http://mathrising.com/?p=1343

5)  Peter Smith has put up a "gentle introduction" to category theory (160-pg. pdf):
http://logicmatters.net/resources/pdfs/GentleIntro.pdf

6)  Most articles I read these days about MOOCs are about their lack of success... so, nice to read something more favorable for a change:
http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-virtual-classes-can-be-better-than-real-ones

7)  There were plenty of tributes to George Boole this week, on the occasion of his 200th birthday, including Colm Mulcahy's:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colm-mulcahy/george-boole_b_8447686.html

8)  New 6-min. overview of Ramanujan's life on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0idBBhGNgU&feature=em-subs_digest-g

9)  Among his many entries for the week Mike Lawler covered a fun construction problem introduced by Patrick Honner:
http://tinyurl.com/n9dmmkc

10)  Ben Orlin's commentary of the week:
http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2015/11/04/if-we-talked-about-other-subjects-the-way-we-talk-about-math/

11)  BBC Radio discussion (podcast) of P vs. NP (starts at ~2:00 mark):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mtms8

...also related to P vs. NP, major rumored (and highly technical) news of the week reported by Scott Aaronson and Godel's Lost Letter :
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2521
https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/a-big-result-on-graph-isomorphism/ 

12)  And because we can never read too much about Ramanujan:
https://plus.maths.org/content/ramanujan 

13)  The ever-entertaining Matt Parker explains the British lottery (via YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP58mP8Wchc&feature=youtu.be
 
A quick note that Martin Gardner's autobiography, "Undiluted Hocus Pocus," is newly-out in paperback this week.
And finally, if you missed any of the Math-Frolic links this week (Mon., Tues., Thur., and today!) you should check them out for some further reads.


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

1)  Cosmologist Martin Rees argues that if we make contact with advanced extraterrestrials they will likely be machine-like rather than organic:
http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-alien-life-will-be-robotic

2)  A fascinating bit on Steve Jobs and Wozniak, pre-Apple, as 'phone phreaks,' hacking the phone system (ohh those younguns!):
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/before-they-created-apple-jobs-and-wozniak-hacked-the-phone-system/