...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.

*********************************************************************************************
"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, September 1, 2017

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:

2)  A primer on quantum computing:

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

4)  Anthony Bonato offers a quick introduction to P vs. NP:
(p.s...: for anyone who didn't hear, the recent claim to a proof has been retracted)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):

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

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.

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…


No comments:

Post a Comment