...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 6, 2017

It's Friday Potpourri Time

Some weeks I worry about coming up with enough Friday links to pass along... this wasn't one of those weeks:

1)  For fans of prime numbers, Evelyn Lamb delivers this fun post:

2)  The “happy ending” problem via Lior Pachter:

3)  Joselle at “Mathematics Rising” relays some thoughts from Andrew Wiles:

4)  A Keith Devlin week!:

 ...on his updated MOOC course:

…on “Number Sense” here:

5)  Sudoku becomes even more fun when you tie it to symmetries, courtesy of always-entertaining Ben Orlin:

6)  Marcus du Sautoy lectures about his latest book, "What We Cannot Know":

7)  For education bloggers/tweeters, the “MTBoS 2017 Blogging Initiative” has begun; read all about it here (and take part!):
https://exploremtbos.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/new-year-new-blog/

8)  Jo Boaler briefly interviewed on the 'math wars':
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ilaina-edison/women-in-the-math-wars-jo_b_13628010.html

9)  Erica Klarreich begins the year reporting on a retraction in complexity theory:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170105-graph-isomorphism-retraction/

10)  One report on the popular "Hidden Figures" talk at the Joint Math Meetings conference in Atlanta this week:
https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/hidden-figures-rock-joint-math-meetings

11)  Do you ever get tired of hearing Steve Strogatz talk about math or education... I didn't think so (the last ~40 mins. is especially good stuff):
http://teachbetter.co/blog/2017/01/02/tbp-episode-45/

12)  Richard Schoen awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize in mathematics:
https://news.uci.edu/faculty/richard-schoen-to-receive-2017-wolf-prize-in-mathematics/

13)  ICYMI, posts at Math-Frolic this week were on the number 7 and Eric Weinstein.

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

1)  If you enjoy podcasts, this list of 50 from Atlantic Magazine looks interesting (many I’m not familiar with):

2)  Gary Taubes continues his battle against sugar:



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