...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, March 24, 2017

A Few Bits From the Week


1)  Sudoku-lovers… Brian Hayes has another addiction to point you to:

2)  Evelyn Lamb talks about immigration… and mathematics:

3) Shortest known paper published” in a math journal:

4)  A Futility Closet problem very reminiscent of classic monk-climbing-mountain brainteaser:

5)  New interview with succinct, interesting Jordan Ellenberg here:
https://anthonybonato.com/2017/03/22/interview-with-a-mathematician-jordan-ellenberg/

6)  The connection between physics and the Riemann Hypothesis the last couple years has been intriguing, perhaps offering a new approach to the century+-old problem. Recent news about possible progress:
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/articles/Physicists-make-major-breakthrough-towards-proof-of-Riemann-hypothesis

7)  Yesterday, I wrote briefly about Eugenia Cheng's latest, "Beyond Infinity":
https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2017/03/about-infinity.html

8)  And if you need some laughs to end the week (and you’re a mathematician), of course there's Ben Orlin:


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

1)  Scott Aaronson doubts the Universe is a simulation:

2)  I’ve spent a lot of hours with Umbrella Cockatoos over the years, but only discovered a couple months ago that they enjoy being brushed like a dog or a cat :):




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