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
-
“We don’t work with greasy machines!”
“In the Mathematics Department we don’t work with greasy machines,” replied one of my undergraduate math professors with a sneer. “You’re going to have to go to the Applied Math department if that’s what you want to do.” That was… Read More ›
-
What is Modern Standard Arabic?
Three months ago I wrote a post about whether Chinese is a language (a language vs. a family of languages). Now it’s time to ask a comparable question about Arabic: is it a language? It’s a comparable question because naive Westerners… Read More ›
-
Is it “Music City” or “Athens of the South”?
Yes, this is the Parthenon. But no, we’re not in Greece. This is the Parthenon in Nashville, not the one in Athens. Barbara and I just got back from a three-day visit to see our niece, Aviva, who is currently… Read More ›
-
International Pronouns Day
As everyone knows, today is International Pronouns Day. Why, you might ask, does such a day exist? There’s no International Adjectives Day, after all. Or International Verbs Day. What’s so special about pronouns? It’s all because English has these gendered… Read More ›
-
New Guinea to New Jersey, 1943
No, I’m not old enough to remember World War II. But I can reprint a letter that my dad, then stationed in New Guinea, wrote to my mom in 1943: This was four years before I was born. (In New… Read More ›
-
Do Trump supporters have empathy?
What does brain science show about whether Trump supporters have empathy? Three days ago I published a post, “Red Brain, Blue Brain,” about a recent Hidden Brain podcast. I discussed some conservative/liberal generalities, but nothing specifically physiological or anatomical. Now it’s time… Read More ›
-
Elderly?
How old is she? From Edmund Crispin, The Moving Toyshop (1946):
-
Red brain, blue brain
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. Remember who said that? I’m sure you do. You probably also remember that it’s a certain well-known Republican talking about immigrants from Mexico… Read More ›
-
The Magician King
The Magician King is the sequel to The Magicians, which I reviewed on September 1. As the second book in Lev Grossman’s trilogy, it follows closely after book #1 and appropriately leaves the reader hanging, waiting for #3. Darker and more mature than The… Read More ›
-
A later start time
Weston students, parents, and teachers: Is the later start time working? Let me know!
-
Feedback from 46 years ago
Going through some old papers, I came across a summary of student feedback from Relations & Functions, a course I team-taught at Lincoln-Sudbury (L–S). This was more-or-less equivalent to today’s Honors Precalculus, and it’s instructive to consider the similarities and… Read More ›
-
Pandas!
Giant panda overload this week! Earlier in the week came the first episode of Martin Yan’s newly revived TV series, Yan Can Cook. The new series, Spice Kingdom, is described as “a 13-part series that explores the many aspects of how food and… Read More ›
-
The cat on the (purple) mat
Douglas looks so handsome on his purple mat, even if he’s deliberately ignoring the Rubik’s Cube:
-
She Was the Quiet One
Is Odell Academy supposed to be Phillips Exeter Academy? All signs point to that, but there’s no direct evidence. Odell is the site of Michele Campbell’s new novel, She Was the Quiet One, a title that develops new meanings as you continue… Read More ›
-
Where to store your rage and keep ire away
Credit to Nigel Fabb via Arnold Zwicky for this photo of the Metropolitan Rage Warehouse in Cambridge, where you can store your rage and keep it safe from anyone’s ire:
-
Urban nature
What do you see here? Your eyes are probably drawn first to the renovated Baker Chocolate Factory building that dominates the top half of the photo. Then you look at the bottom half and see more urban landscape — some… Read More ›
-
Something Wonderful
You need the subtitle. The full name of the book is Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution, which gives you a pretty good picture of the subject of the book. As I grew up in the ’60s, I was… Read More ›
-
Heavenly Creatures
Wow! Just saw this 1994 film — what took me so long? — and now Heavenly Creatures will clearly be added to the list of my top ten all-time favorite movies (though I’m not yet sure which entry it will displace)…. Read More ›
-
A small job
As you can see, we badly needed a new ceiling in our guest room. We also needed a ceiling light, not to mention a fan. And while we were at it, we also needed a new ceiling and new light… Read More ›
-
Learning in depth: high school SCOTUS blog
If you didn’t listen to the NPR report Why a High High Schooler Started Covering The Supreme Court, on this morning’s Weekend Edition Sunday, you should definitely do so! Do it right now, before you forget. OK, now that you’re… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 