First Potpourri of September

Assuming by now that you’ve dried your eyes over the loss of Sebastian Gorka from this White House after 31 despotic weeks (...Sad), I’ll pass along a few miscellaneous math reads:

1)  Steve Strogatz’s lectures on “Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos” available here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbN57C5Zdl6j_qJA-pARJnKsmROzPnO9V&app=desktop

2)  A primer on quantum computing:

http://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-you-need-to-know-about-quantum-computing

3)  Journals (including math journals) ‘behaving badly’:

http://blogs.ams.org/blogonmathblogs/2017/08/28/some-stories-of-journals-behaving-badly/

4)  Anthony Bonato offers a quick introduction to P vs. NP:

https://anthonybonato.com/2017/08/30/the-p-vs-np-problem/

(p.s...: for anyone who didn't hear, the recent claim to a proof has been retracted)

5)  I was writing a post about the absurdity (or at least misunderstanding) of phrases like “1 in a 100-year flood” or now “1 in a 500-year flood” — but then Maggie Koerth-Baker covered it at FiveThirtyEight (though I’d be even harsher than she about phrases where the variables can’t even be adequately catalogued or defined, let alone measured):

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-time-to-ditch-the-concept-of-100-year-floods/

6)  A new episode from the “Relatively Prime” podcast:

http://relprime.com/redistrict/

7)  Cool!... going live with "An #MTBoS Story" in front of 80 colleagues:
https://mathis3d.blogspot.com/2017/08/an-mtbostory.html

8)  Mathematical mutants and self-organization via "Mathematics Rising":
http://mathrising.com/?p=1508

9)  On Tuesday I asked about the Collatz conjecture, and am still interested in any further ‘backstory’ if anyone has something to pass along.

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2017/08/collatz-so-whats-history-of-it.html

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

1)  A long, wonderful read from Scott Alexander on research and IRBs:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/
(...and a bunch of followup comments/stories to his post HERE.)

2)  And finally, in the category of ‘things-I-stumbled-upon-while-bopping-around-the-web-that-I’d-never-heard-of-before’ this performance on a “Chapman stick”:

p.s…: If any math communicator out there would like to be interviewed here let me know. Maybe you have a book or project to promote, or just want to further publicize a blog or website, or you just have a story you’d like to tell; whatever! Contact me at SheckyR{AT}gmail…