Author Archives
In 2018 I semi-retired by retiring from Weston High School after my 21st year teaching mathematics there. This was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. In 2023 I retired fully, adding in my 18 years at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer. For 21 years I had taught at the Saturday Course in Milton, MA, and I used to serve on the board of the Dorchester Historical Society.
I read, cook, and spend a lot of time building my model railroad. For some reason I’m left with less free time than would be ideal, considering that I’m supposed to be retired, but somehow I also manage to devote time to my wife, Barbara, and to our varying number of cats (once up to six, but now sadly down to one).
Larry Davidson
ljd@larrydavidson.com
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An upcoming reunion — words and all
Yikes! My 50th college reunion is coming up! (You already know this if you happen to have read a certain post that I wrote a couple of months ago.) What was the famous class of 1969 like? “All happy graduating… Read More ›
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Roots and wings
Looking back, do you like the way your parents raised you? Eight of my nine principal academic interests came from my dad: in alphabetical order we have editing, history, languages, law, maps, math, philosophy, and typography. We’re only missing computer… Read More ›
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The Israeli election, consciousness-raising, a potential Nobel Peace Prize winner, the college admissions scandal, the U.S. constitution, and mostly a Sierpinskitasch — all in one post
Six topics in a single blog post? How can that be? Well, it’s all because those are six of the topics discussed in a single blog post in Scott Aaronson’s interesting blog, Shtetl-Optimized — all being examples of things that make… Read More ›
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A 5% discount (or is it a five percent discount? or a 5 percent discount? or a five % discount?)
Like many of you, I grew up learning the traditional rules about when to write out numbers in words and when to use numerals. Most professionals continue to use these rules today, as in the following awkward paragraph from Talking… Read More ›
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Excellent carpentry, Verizon!
Coleman Road, Arlington (corner of Wildwood Ave). That looks like a first-rate job, safe and secure, doesn’t it? Excellent carpentry, Verizon!
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Code Girls
You know how college recommendation forms often ask “What three words first come to mind about this applicant?” In the case of Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Codebreakers of World War II, the three words would be fascinating, absorbing,… Read More ›
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A Truck Full of Money
As you may know, Tracy Kidder is the author of some wonderful non-fiction books, including Soul of a New Machine, House, and Mountains Beyond Mountains. (He also attended both high school and college with me, but that’s not so important.) Apparently this really is a… Read More ›
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Crypto: The KEY to Algebra.
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, where I wrote “I also gave a second talk, in a breakout session, on cryptography.” The crypto talk was a bit more informal than the keynote; it had an audience of about a… Read More ›
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I gave the keynote address… and lived to tell the tale!
Yesterday I delivered the Keynote Address at the annual conference of the New England Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges. Despite being an INTJ — which means that I should have been exhausted by the presence of so many other people —… Read More ›
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A student’s take on testing and related pressures
Hello my name is worthless Name number and date State your class and hour Let the rubric pick your fate This is the first stanza of a high-school student’s poem, as posted by her teacher, Kevin Bosworth, in Diane Ravitch’s blog…. Read More ›
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Our Stories, our Stuff, our Somerville at the Somerville Museum
What have you got in your basement? Yesterday I had the opportunity to see a fascinating exhibit of 79 artifacts at the Somerville Museum, all donated by Somerville residents. They have been organized by type of object, as you… Read More ›
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Another #1 for Weston, plus a public service flowing from Weston to Dorchester
Something else where Weston is #1: According to Commonwealth Magazine, “The most generous political donors in Massachusetts state and municipal campaigns last year, perhaps unsurprisingly, tend to live in some of the wealthiest communities in the state… Weston was at the very… Read More ›
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Bimbos of the Death Sun
No, it’s not what you think. This hilarious novel, by Sharyn McCrumb, is a satiric mystery about a fictional SF con (that’s science fiction convention, to you mundanes out there). The protagonist is a professor of electrical engineering at Virginia… Read More ›
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Congratulations!
Congratulations to the Weston High School Math Team for finishing first in the state in the Massachusetts Math League!
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Over the cliff
Douglas peers down over the edge of a scary cliff:
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Friends of Dorothy
In my naive youth, I had no idea what a “friend of Dorothy” was; in-group descriptors, after all, are always known to members of the in group (and allies) long before they are known to the general public. “Friend of… Read More ›
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Mollie on her kitty couch
That tiny little Mollie doesn’t look quite so tiny when she’s stretched out on her kitty couch:
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Panic
Consider this. Here we have a great movie from 2000, starring William H. Macy, Donald Sutherland, Tracy Ullman, Neve Campbell, and John Ritter — so why hadn’t I ever heard of it before? Oh well, better late than never. It’s… Read More ›
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“Libraries are a haven…”
For more reasons than one you need to read Angela Clarke’s story from six years ago. Shoutout to my sister-in-law Brenda for alerting me to this excerpt from Clarke’s account: My own fragility revealed that a library is not just… Read More ›
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No Pi Day?
This is the first time in 26 years that I haven’t been able to observe a weekday Pi Day with any of my classes. Sigh. But there are plenty of online resources for my past, present, and future students.
Learning Strategies 