Some Math From the Week

A week with liddle Republicans coming apart at the seams, and Melania Trump, drenched-to-the-bone in irony, speaking of a campaign (LOL) against bullying, and our own Gov’t., in a demonstration of why so many revile it and see neo-fascism as an appealing alternative, deciding that 25 years just wasn’t enough time to figure out how to release a trove of JFK documents as ordered to by law. (What else can’t possibly be accomplished in 25 years? I mean other than healthcare, tax reform, fair re-districting, gun control, banking reform, truth-in-advertising, climate change regulation...). Is it any longer a surprise that so many voters perceive government workers as lazy, incompetent, pencil-pushers, and Steve Bannon thinks his future looks bright...
'This too shall pass'... or, maybe not.
Oh well, some bits of math from the week:

1)  The Cantor Set and more explained:

https://infinityplusonemath.wordpress.com/2017/10/21/the-cantor-set/

2)  Caltech’s Barry Simon wins Heineman Prize for mathematical physics:

https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-10/aiop-bsw102017.php

3)  This week’s Futility Closet podcast highlighted Swedish mathematician Arne Beurling:

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2017/10/23/podcast-episode-174-cracking-nazi-code/

4)  H/T to Cathy O’Neil for pointing out this piece on possible problems in a complex DNA testing algorithm:

https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-judge-unseals-new-york-crime-labs-software-for-analyzing-dna-evidence

5)  There are so many fantastic free math instructional videos around these days… and yet Grant Sanderson still seems to have advanced to a league of his own. I hope you all are keeping up with his incredible offerings at 3blue1brown:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw

It will be interesting to see if we witness a significant increase in math majors and basic math literacy in the future just because of all the great content now freely available online at people’s fingertips.

6)  The 150th Carnival of Mathematics is now up at:

https://www.codima.ac.uk/2017/10/22/carnival-of-mathematics-150/

7)  Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has a new book on the way next year, “Lost In Math”:

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/10/book-update.html

8)  Prices at Whole Foods:

http://junkcharts.typepad.com/numbersruleyourworld/2017/10/the-whole-foods-pricing-trick.html

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

1) The 11-min. ‘Prologue’ (with a female airline pilot) to last week’s “This American Life” was pretty dang entertaining:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/629/expect-delays?act=0#play

2)  Perhaps my favorite tweet from this week:

https://twitter.com/mikeindustries/status/923255773244911616