...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.

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"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

Friday, February 19, 2016

Friday Wrap-up...


This week's eclectic mix:

1)  Funny words... involve math (and why not, pretty much everything else does) (h/t John Golden):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMfpw5us_7Y

2)  You may be interested in taking up Jason Rosenhouse's offer to send you his latest paper via pdf:
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2016/02/12/happy-darwin-day/

3)  Peter Woit has some links to more info about Grothendieck in this post:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8311

4)  The 131st "Carnival of Mathematics" posted earlier in week with its usual variety:
http://aperiodical.com/2016/02/carnival-of-mathematics-131/

5)  Another remarkable Numberphile video from Tadashi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuuYFt8bahE&feature=youtu.be

6)  Last weekend Mike Lawler had a long, chock-full post about Common Core and sharing math with kids:
https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2016/02/14/sharing-math-from-mathematicians-with-the-common-core/

7)  If you like some physics mixed in with your math, this piece from plus Magazine on "Symmetry Making and Symmetry Breaking":
https://plus.maths.org/content/symmetry-making-and-symmetry-breaking

8)  I was VERY pleased to see that Michael Harris' "Mathematics Without Apologies" recently won a PROSE Award in the 'Mathematics' category. This was my 2nd favorite book for all of 2015, and it is a rich volume evoking fresh thoughts/ideas with every re-reading:
https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/disorganized-snobs-want-to-know/

9)  Gotta love Futility Closet's almost-always succinct math puzzles -- easy-to-state, tricky to solve... like this one from yesterday:
www.futilitycloset.com/2016/02/18/pip-squeak/

10)  Evelyn Lamb writes about (and seeks further information on) Black mathematicians in this AMS posting:
http://tinyurl.com/jpad378

...speaking of which here's a new Anthony Bonato piece on John Urschel:
http://tinyurl.com/joy3zg4

11)  Dylan Kane reflects (or perhaps meta-reflects) on the 'why and how of learning math,' everyday language... and throwing future teachers under the bus:
 https://fivetwelvethirteen.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/affirmation/
  

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

1) 
ICYMI, the story of the California hospital that just paid a ransom to free its computers from ransomware:
http://tinyurl.com/hp49hqj

2)  10 finalists for the million-dollar Varkey Foundation Global Teacher of the Year award have been announced:
http://www.globalteacherprize.org/2016-finalists

(the list includes 2 Americans, Joe Fatheree and Michael Soskel) 
Congratulations and good luck to all ...and I have no friggin' idea why Fawn Nguyen isn't on this list :-((
 


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