Math-mix For the Week Ending

Some varied math bits that caught my eye amidst week #26 of Trumpocalypse:

1)  Interesting interview with educator Alan Schoenfeld:

https://mathblog.com/alan-schoenfeld-boundaries-effective-mathematics-thinking-teaching-learning/

2)  The latest from Brian Hayes:

http://bit-player.org/2017/approximately-yours

3)  A statistical talk on YouTube I haven’t found time to watch all of yet, but was recommended on Gelman’s blog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSgEeI2Xpdc

4)  Erica Klarreich on game theory, John Nash, and economics:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-game-theory-no-clear-path-to-equilibrium-20170718/

5)  Popsci report on a Chinese “Good Will Hunting” working with Carmichael numbers:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/17/asia/china-migrant-worker-good-will-hunting/

6)  Grothendieck lives on, sort of:

http://www.neverendingbooks.org/grothendiecks-gallery-no-154

7)  For teachers, parents, mathematicians, an interesting Twitter thread here (related to what’s often called ‘teaching to the test’):

https://twitter.com/lakeCDSBEO/status/888951795485212672

8) And speaking of testing, if you haven’t already been following along you might want to check out the issues (again) Patrick Honner finds with the latest NY State Regents Math Exam:

http://mrhonner.com/archives/17698

http://mrhonner.com/archives/17627

http://mrhonner.com/archives/17625

9)  Like I don’t have enough podcasts to listen to… dang if Kevin Knudson & Evelyn Lamb haven't started a new one:

https://kpknudson.com/my-favorite-theorem/2017/7/25/episode-1-amie-wilkinson

…and speaking of podcasts, the latest from Sam Hansen’s “Relatively Prime”:

http://relprime.com/outside/

10)  Benjamin, Berger, Ioannidis, Nosek, et.al. argue for lowering p-values to 0.005 for the social and biomedical sciences:

http://www.nature.com/news/big-names-in-statistics-want-to-shake-up-much-maligned-p-value-1.22375

...and, one response to their paper here:
http://multaverba.blogspot.com/2017/07/new-p-0005-standard-considered-harmful.html

11)  Prime number enthusiasts may find this paper of interest:

http://www.ugr.es/~arredondo/Primes2.pdf

12) John Baez on ‘the geometry of music’:

https://plus.google.com/+johncbaez999/posts/YRNyBCxRXnt

13)  Slime molds as mathematicians, via Joselle at “Mathematics Rising”:

http://mathrising.com/?p=1499

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

1)  Oh those predatory journals! (getting stung):

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2017/07/22/predatory-journals-star-wars-sting/#.WXMk3K2ZPUp

2)  Meanwhile, the below avian well-expresses my own feelings every time I hear Donald Trump’s name arise in conversation:

Some Reads From the Week...

Week #25 of America’s Trumpian nightmare, but at least there's some wonderful math to distract us (including some more pieces I noted over at Math-Frolic yesterday):

1)  Another ‘math-is-beautiful’ article, starting off with Maryam Mirzakhani  (h/t Keith Devlin):

https://newhumanist.org.uk/5208/what-makes-maths-beautiful

2)  Neurons use linear algebra to recognize faces:

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/features/foundation-news/scgb-news/face-recognition-relies-on-surprisingly-simple-code/

3)  Sara Vanderwerf (who hasn’t used a math textbook for her students in the last 4 years) recommends some Web resources for the classroom:

https://saravanderwerf.com/2017/07/17/5-websites-you-need-to-spend-an-hour-at-and-steal-amazing-resources-for-your-classroom-this-fall/

4)  I love profiles of mathematicians, and this has been a banner week for them…

a) If you haven’t already read enough about Maryam Mirzakhani I added several more links at the end of the initial post I did upon her death:

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-light-was-turned-off-today.html

b) h/t to Nalini Joshi for pointing out this long, fascinating piece on Grothendieck:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201707/the-mad-genius-mystery

c)  If you don’t already know of it, Holly Krieger pointed out this “Women in maths” Facebook page (where she is currently profiled) a couple days ago:

https://www.facebook.com/womeninmaths/posts/1818882568324579:0

d) and I’ll repeat mention of the piece I linked to earlier at Math-Frolic on the great Robert Langlands:

http://projects.thestar.com/math-the-canadian-who-reinvented-mathematics/

These are all great reads if you’re into biographical portraits!

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

1)  Who knew!? The best song of all time is “Africa” by Toto:

http://gizmodo.com/whats-the-best-song-according-to-science-1796927071

(hey, DON’T write me, write Gizmodo)

2)  The wonderful story of checkers, Marion Tinsley, and Chinook (h/t Jordan Ellenberg):

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/marion-tinsley-checkers/534111/

Some End-of-Week Picks

Week #24 of Trump dismantling America while the GOP watches & smirks….

1) Andrew Gelman once again takes a look at psychology replication:

http://andrewgelman.com/2017/07/08/bigshot-psychologist-unhappy-famous-finding-doesnt-replicate-wont-consider-might-wrong-instead-scrambles-furiously-preserve-theories/

2) Still confused by Bitcoin... Grant Sanderson’s latest 2 videos (3Blue1Brown) have been on cryptocurrencies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9JGmA5_unY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4

3)  Math and music:

https://theconversation.com/how-maths-helps-us-understand-why-music-moves-people-74876

4)  Thanks to Martin Gardner many of you know of Marjorie Rice who gave hope to amateur mathematicians everywhere; now dead at 97:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/marjorie-rices-secret-pentagons-20170711/

5)  And more elaborately discussing all the convex pentagons/polygons that tile the plane (via Quanta): 

https://www.quantamagazine.org/pentagon-tiling-proof-solves-century-old-math-problem-20170711/ 

6)  The latest issue of the online Journal of Humanistic Mathematics:

http://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/topdownloads.html

7)  A prestigious math journal retracts a 16-year-old paper:

http://retractionwatch.com/2017/07/12/author-shocked-top-math-journal-retracts-paper/

8)  Another followup to the prior Anna Haensch “refrain-from-discussing-mathematics” viral story from a couple weeks back:
http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2017/jul/03/slaying-the-math-monster-20170703/

9)  The latest from Keith Devlin on 'representations,' learning, and 'exploding dots':
http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-power-of-simple-representations.html

10)  "Category Theory for Normal Humans" (podcast) with Eugenia Cheng:
http://www.greaterthancode.com/podcast/episode-038-category-theory-for-normal-humans-with-eugenia-cheng/
(p.s. Cheng also has her own YouTube channel HERE.)

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

1)  Last week, NPR’s TED Radio Hour re-ran a fascinating prior episode titled “Hidden”:

http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/?showDate=2017-07-07

(The first segment is especially mind-blowing about translating the vibrations of everyday objects into sound.)

2) Longish, interesting piece, via FiveThirtyEight on AI and chess and other games:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-bots-beat-us-now-what/

Short Potpourri

Week #23 of the hijacking of America…

…sorry, a short potpourri this week, as I’ve had too much summer busy-ness this week, while also remaining glued to the Yingying Zhang case in Illinois, where the accused has now been imprisoned, not in Champaign-Urbana, but in my own original hometown of Decatur!

1)  Plenty more math to read in latest “Math Teachers At Play” blog:

http://mathmamawrites.blogspot.com/2017/06/math-teachers-at-play-109-blog-carnival.html

2)  I’ve already instructed all of you to subscribe to Evelyn Lamb’s monthly “TinyLetter,” so I’m not even going to inform you that this month’s edition is here. ;)

3)  The best way to play “Hangman” (h/t Dave Richeson):

http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/april12012/

4)  Alex Bellos’ Monday puzzle (he knows you always get more hits if you put a cat in the puzzle ;):

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/03/can-you-solve-it-are-you-smarter-than-a-cat

5)  More math gems from Jo Morgan:

http://www.resourceaholic.com/2017/07/gems74.html

6)  And to take up the rest of your time, another wonderful post from Brian Hayes, this time exploring the pecking-chickens-in-a-circle problem that went around recently:
http://bit-player.org/2017/counting-your-chickens-before-theyre-pecked

ADDENDUM:  The newest "Carnival of Mathematics" came out after I posted the potpourri, so don't mind adding it here:
http://www.cambridgemaths.org/news/view/carnival-of-maths-147/

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

1)  Last week’s TED Radio Hour was all about space (with Brian Greene, Phil Plait, and Jill Tarter):

http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/

2) …and keeping with a sciencey theme, plenty of cool essays from the FQXi Essay Contest winners:

http://fqxi.org/community/essay/winners/2016.2