...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, December 30, 2016

Close-out Potpourri of 2016


Good-bye (riddance) to 2016, but not before pointing to a few more math reads:

1)  Ben Orlin’s round-faced friends took a closer look at the (not-so) boring number line this week:

2)  “Flowing Data” called attention to this video introduction to Bayesian thinking:

3)  This Nikola Tesla bit of history almost reads like a Martin Gardner prank, but is apparently real:

4) “Ethics and Statistics” (…or is that an oxymoron? ;-) via Andrew Gelman:

5)  God-only-knows what scientific data will be destroyed once Donald Trump and his minions take reins in the White House, so John Baez continues his campaign to save climate data for posterity (…you know, just in case the Earth is worth saving):

6)  A relatively new blog for educators that I’d not seen before and David Wees pointed out yesterday:

7)  Mike Lawler posted a year-end review citing some of his favorite 2016 math projects with his sons; so many great ideas and projects:

8) And couple days back, I felt compelled to write about the inmates running the asylum (sorry, but this truly is the most depressing New Years of my entire lifetime):


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

End the year with just some relaxing music once again:





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