...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, May 20, 2016

Weekend Reads


Perhaps to compensate for last week's short list, a longer math potpourri this week:

1)  The "bigger problems" of science, from Andrew Gelman, over at Retraction Watch:
http://retractionwatch.com/2016/05/19/retractions-arent-enough-why-science-has-bigger-problems/

2)  This is old, but just crossed my screen this week: An old Quora thread with a wide variety of riddles/puzzles (some good, fresher ones among many old standbyes):
https://www.quora.com/Whats-a-riddle-that-many-people-of-above-average-intelligence-cannot-solve

3)  Speaking of Quora, Scott Aaronson did an "Ask Me Anything" session there this week:
https://www.quora.com/session/Scott-Aaronson/1?share=1

4)  The latest "Carnival of Mathematics" here:
http://hardmath123.github.io/carnival-of-mathematics-134.html

5)  A little overview of 'big data' from plus Magazine:
https://plus.maths.org/content/big-data

6)  Wonderful Fermat history from Jim Propp:
http://tinyurl.com/z34n9vb

7)  The Aperiodical paid tribute to Solomon Golomb:
http://aperiodical.com/2016/05/solomon-golomb-1932-2016/

8)  56-min. video... Marcus du Sautoy on his new book, "What We Cannot Know":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbo3NZdReEg

9)  Ben Orlin answers 2 questions at one time -- "Will this be on the test?" and "Will this end up in a cartoon?":
http://tinyurl.com/gram5lu

10)  If you like a little physics mixed in with your math, another fun Numberphile video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEpQ8YxupfQ [corrected]

(not sure, but Tadashi Tokieda may be surpassing James Grime as my favorite Numberphile presenter! ;-)

11)  Allen Downey cheerleads for Bayesian statistics:
http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2016/05/learning-to-love-bayesian-statistics.html

12)  Probably no surprise to anyone, Andrew Wiles wins the Abel Prize:
https://thatsmaths.com/2016/05/19/andrew-wiles-wins-2016-abel-prize/

13)  Scientific American investigates a couple of very large numbers:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/video/epic-math-battles-go-versus-atoms/

14)  Ken Ono profiled and interviewed in Quanta Magazine, just yesterday:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160519-ken-ono-mathematician-inspired-by-ramanujan/

15)  Adam Kucharski talks about the mathematics of gambling (7-min. podcast; you may want to check out some of the older "related content" that is listed as well):
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/specials/show/20160516-2/

16)  Another podcast of Keith Devlin offering his view of math education (...and introducing me to an image I shan't forget: "chocolate-covered broccoli"):
http://ijpr.org/post/learning-and-using-math#stream/0


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

1)  This is just the bizarre account of an "aphantasiac" (Blake Ross at Vox) describing his inability to 'visualize' as others do:
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/19/11683274/aphantasia


2)  ...and of a quite different mood, this powerful piece of writing on rape, that manages to tread a delicate line between heavy and light (h/t to Susan Lerner):
http://booth.butler.edu/2016/05/13/how-to-write-a-rape-piece-if-you-really-feel-you-must/



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