No, I’m not talking about the notorious difficulties of English spelling. Nor am I talking about the oddities of English idioms and compound words, such as the all-too-well-known “Why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?”… Read More ›
Month: November 2020
I know it’s hard to believe, but you too can use a simple formula to generate all the prime numbers!
You probably thought that there is no such formula — one that will generate all and only the prime numbers (formula, not sieve). Right? Well, it turns out that there is! (More or less.) Keep reading… Just start with the… Read More ›
Linguists
Mouse-over text: “Do you feel like the answer depends on whether you’re currently in the hole, versus when you refer to the events later after you get out? Assuming you get out.”
Tavolo!
Barbara and I had yummy take-out yesterday from Tavolo (at least two dinners’ worth for the two of us): pan seared duck breast with smashed 12 moon farm pumpkin, grilled asparagus, cinnamon, vincoto; house meatballs with marinara and parmesan; shrimp… Read More ›
A number of galactic proportions
Take, say, 73 little cubes (blocks or ordinary D6 dice). Could you arrange them into three perfect cubes? I’ll wait while you try to solve this problem… OK, you probably started by taking 64 of them to make a 4×4×4… Read More ›
Ivy is a Weed
Any good academic mystery is always a treat. Robert M. Roseth’s Ivy is a Weed is a good academic mystery. The story takes place at a thinly disguised University of Washington, Seattle campus. For the most part it’s a spot-on satire of bureaucratic… Read More ›
Sorry, but we’re just not going to be able to get rid of the Electoral College.
Finally the American people have woken up and understand the Electoral College (EC), or at least its importance. Well, at least somewhat. My Quantitative Reasoning (QR) students at the Crimson Summer Academy (CSA) certainly understand it: how many electors each… Read More ›
Pronounce bruschetta, schism, and schedule. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
No, the “sch” in bruschetta is not pronounced like the English “sh”! It’s pronounced like the English “sk.” Bruschetta is an Italian word, not a German word, so don’t pronounce it as in Schadenfreude, to quote James Harbeck in the link below. Actually, the issue is slightly more… Read More ›
My ethnicity puzzle. Any ideas?
Can you help me solve my ethnicity puzzle? You might have some ideas, especially if you yourself have Ashkenazi heritage. Ancestry sent me this information about my paternal grandfather (from the 1910 Federal census). Does everything look right to you?… Read More ›
Is this the life of a typical college freshman during the pandemic?
Even without actually doing anything, I’m exhausted just from watching this four-minute video! This is definitely not the life of a typical college freshman as portrayed in the media. So the question remains: how many freshmen — excuse me, “first-years” — are… Read More ›
Grey elections
Who cares about the mathematics of elections? We all should, of course — especially now. An informative, even entertaining way to learn about this topic is to watch the videos of CGP Grey. For a scary example, take a look… Read More ›
A Broken Hallelujah: Rock and Roll, Redemption, and the Life of Leonard Cohen
What did Alex Trebek and Leonard Cohen have in common? “Both were Canadians,” you reply. “Both were beloved by huge audiences,” you add. Yes, of course. And both get the title of Rabbi, according to Mark Oppenheimer, cohost of the… Read More ›
What I’ve learned in the past hour
I just learned (a bit) about the Zettelkasten Method! You probably already know about it, but I had never heard of it. Basically it’s hypertext without needing computers — just notecards and paperclips, though software is certainly allowed. In an… Read More ›
Not possible! What are emojis doing in 1807?
How much of this advertisement (from 1807!) can you figure out? Note that it says “hieroglyphical” where we would have said “rebus” when I was a kid or “emojis” today. You’ll probably do much better at reading it than I… Read More ›
How have I forgotten this number system?
That’s easy. I couldn’t have forgotten it, as I had never known about it in the first place! We’re talking about the Cistercian number system. Sounds monkish, doesn’t it? Yes, that’s what it is; it was developed by Cistercian monks… Read More ›
Really? You’re saying Ranked Choice Voting is too hard for adults in Massachusetts?
My former Quantitative Reasoning (QR) students know that Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is superior to First Past the Post (FPTP), the system we use in Massachusetts for most elections. So why did Massachusetts adults vote it down by a convincing… Read More ›
Is it easy to teach an interactive map class online?
Nine months ago I wrote about a mapping workshop at the Boston Public Library. That was before the pandemic, even if it feels like the pandemic has been going on for a couple of years now. Why, you may ask,… Read More ›
The true name of the bear (in XKCD, not Vernor Vinge)
True names are important: if somebody knows your true name, they have power over you. I’m not talking about Vernor Vinge’s important novella, True Names, although there is definitely a strong connection with it. Many contributors to social media, as we know,… Read More ›
Hexagonal squares???
Taking a much-needed break from watching the nail-biting election returns, we will consider hexagonal squares. “No such thing,” you say, since you are a knowledgeable geometer. I first saw the phrase “hexagonal squares” when I was 13 or 14, reading… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 