Unwrapping a Few Math Reads From the Week

Math just keeps coming:

1)  Jim Propp’s latest monthly offering is on David Kelly’s “Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics” program.  If, like me, you’ve never heard of it (and perhaps even moreso if you have) fascinating stuff, with lots of good links:

https://mathenchant.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/will-17-be-the-year-of-the-pig/

2)  Dylan Kane on using instructional visual patterns:

https://fivetwelvethirteen.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/implementing-routines-visual-patterns/

3)  Andrew Gelman revisits the “hot hand” discussion yet one more time:

http://andrewgelman.com/2016/12/19/30759/

(…wonder if ‘hot hands’ apply to bloggers, ‘cuz Andrew has been on a tear lately putting up blog posts ;)

4)  Just in time for Christmas, new from James Grime & Numberphile on Euler’s number ‘e’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuA2EAgAegE

5)  “Solve My Maths” keeps putting up great geometry problems week after week:

https://solvemymaths.com

…and I only recently realized (“DOH!”) the site also has a separate blog with interesting posts:

https://solvemymaths.com/category/blog/

6)  The “Christmaths edition” of the “Math Teachers At Play” blog carnival is up here:

http://mathmisery.com/wp/2016/12/20/math-teachers-at-play-103-christmaths-edition/

7)  Calculus and rooves from DataGenetics:
http://datagenetics.com/blog/december42016/index.html

8)  The PBS "Infinite Series" that several on on the Web have referenced recently:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs4aHmggTfFrpkPcWSaBN9g/featured

9)  It's the giving time of year, so I'll just mention that Greg Ross who runs "Futility Closet," a favorite eclectic site for 11 years (with many science/math bits) is always in need of monetary support:
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2016/12/22/please-help-2/


10)  Welcome to your new algorithm-overlords... Cathy O'Neil points to this Wall St. Journal piece hinting at our superlative future:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-worlds-largest-hedge-fund-is-building-an-algorithmic-model-of-its-founders-brain-1482423694

11)  ICYMI, my final interview of the year, last weekend, was with Grant Sanderson of the amazing 3Blue1Brown website:
https://mathtango.blogspot.com/2016/12/grant-sanderson-eye-for-math-video.html

12)  And one last piece I'm throwing in just because I found it oddball and difficult/confusing to follow — don’t know if that’s just me, or if it really is poorly composed — it’s Stephen Senn on placebos in research, in a guest post at Deborah Mayo’s site, where I usually find more clearly written statistics posts:

https://errorstatistics.com/2016/12/19/s-senn-placebos-its-not-only-the-patients-that-are-fooled-guest-post/

(p.s… I’m not necessarily commenting on the merits of what he’s written, only on the confusion of it)

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

1)  Last weekend’s “This American Life” was a rerun of one of their classics about how children perceive the world. Even if you’ve heard it before worth hearing again at this season of children’s dreams:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/605/kid-logic-2016

2)  Speaking of children, and sorry to be a downer, but hope everyone keeps the children of every God-forsaken war-torn place on this planet in your thoughts at this time of year… will close out with some (somber) Mary Chapin Carpenter holiday music: