...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, January 20, 2017

Friday Grab-bag


A few readings for ya, on this day that may live in infamy:

1)  Lover of prime numbers, Evelyn Lamb, gets trolled by Wilson’s Theorem:

2)  Erica Klarreich’s followup on graph isomorphism (via Quanta):

3)  Another quickie introduction to category theory:

4)  Jim Propp’s monthly posting, fascinating as always, this time on the “Prouhet/Thue/Morse sequence":

5) If Venn Diagrams bored you in school, you need to consider these from Ben Orlin:

6)  Another rock-paper-scissors twist from Presh Talwalkar:

7)  For fans of the Broadway hit “Hamilton,” who also happen to be mathematicians, well, Evelyn Lamb has the post for you:

8)  Markov chains and a chess knight (from PBS's "Infinite Series"):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63HHmjlh794 

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

1)  Natalie Wolchover (for Quanta) on a new theory of life's origins:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170119-active-droplets-cell-division/

2)  This is from last year but I just saw it for the first time going around this week; delightful, if you missed it:




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