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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Fantasy Internships
For the second year in a row, our college-prep Algebra II classes are all doing a year-long applied math project centering on cryptography, which has long been one of the four units in our Algebra II curriculum. This project is… Read More ›
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Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away
Plato! Google! What a combination! Philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein imagines what would happen if Plato were somehow still alive and were visiting Google, being interviewed on talk shows, etc. This premise, of course, requires a certain suspension of disbelief,… Read More ›
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Seveneves
Another fine novel from the great Neal Stephenson! Though not by any means his best, Seveneves is still a five-star story. Go read it. At only 880 pages, you’ll be able to finish it in a day or two. Well…no. It really… Read More ›
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What Language is: And What it isn’t and What it Could Be
Sometimes people ask me to recommend a good book on linguistics for the general reader — not a textbook, not a technical treatise, just an informative (and accurate) explanation of what linguistics is all about. I’ve never quite been sure… Read More ›
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Attributes of a good mathematician
In a Professional Development activity a couple of years ago, we brainstormed the “attributes of a good mathematician.” These were supposed to be the characteristics that a successful math student should be developing, so we started thinking about how to… Read More ›
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You Are Not Special
You’ve probably heard about David McCullough Jr.’s much-publicized graduation speech at Wellesley High School back in 2012. Perhaps you even saw it on YouTube. Perhaps you read the book by the same title. Perhaps you were even there in person. In… Read More ›
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The Berkshires: Mostly museums
Barbara and I have just returned from a mini-vacation, which we were able to squeeze in between the end of Crimson Summer Academy and the beginning of workshops for Weston High School. We decided we would spend three days in… Read More ›
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Ace Atkins as Robert Parker
Reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels is a guilty pleasure. The Boston and Cambridge locales are spot on, the dialog is snappy, and most of the plots are entertaining. Or perhaps I should say it was a guilty pleasure, as Parker died… Read More ›
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Pixar: Transformations and mathematical models at the Museum of Science
Pixar? Math? What a combination! When I wrote about what I learned at the NCTM Annual Meeting back in April, I observed that geometric transformations and mathematical models were common themes at that conference. Transformations seem fairly abstract, even if… Read More ›
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The new Boston Public Market
The new Boston Public Market opened a couple of weeks ago to much fanfare. Along with a lot of positive publicity, there were some vocal critics, so I had to check it out. This isn’t the kind of farm stand… Read More ›
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It's just so much work being a cat all day…
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Missing the point?
As you know, the devil is in the details. Details, you say? Well, the Math Curmudgeon is always worth reading…but I often disagree with him, most especially with some of his details. Consider his post “Missing the Point,” which deals primarily… Read More ›
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Temari balls
We traditionally cap off Honors Geometry by ending the course with a brief exploration of non-Euclidean geometries. In recent years we have focused on geometry on the surface of a sphere; we ask freshmen to pretend that they are living on… Read More ›
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Sea Breeze revisited
Just over four years ago, I favorably reviewed the Sea Breeze Mexican Grill, which had just opened in our neighborhood. This restaurant chugged along for a while, being an adequate neighborhood restaurant but nothing special. My initial enthusiasm began to wane…. Read More ›
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How science and math see each other
Ben does it again! We’re back to Math with Bad Drawings, with another post that resonates deeply with me as a math teacher. It begins with the somewhat startling claim that “mathematicians and scientists don’t share all that much in common.” How… Read More ›
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The Cats: a photo-essay
Back in March…and April…and May…a group of freshmen kept pestering me (nicely, of course) to write a photo-essay about my cats, so I finally gave into the pressure and wrote one. Just follow this link.
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Oliver Sacks
I’ve long been an admirer of Oliver Sacks — see, for instance, my post on Musicophilia — but it was his recent announcement that he is fatally ill that led me to want to read more than just that book… Read More ›
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Reactions to the NCTM Annual Meeting
Fortunately I didn’t write this report just now! (I wrote it at the end of April, right after the NCTM meeting. I never would have remembered all these details if I had waited three and a half months.) Just follow… Read More ›
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A return to blogging
So…how long has it been since I blogged? Almost a year? Well, ten months anyway, which is far too long a hiatus. So I’m resuming as of today. I am hoping for at least four posts a week, and probably… Read More ›
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Delvyn Case explains the Beatles.
Music professor and composer Delvyn Case gave a refreshing and informative talk yesterday afternoon about the music of the Beatles. The talk, of course, was part of the Dorchester Historical Society’s lecture series. Of course. What do I hear you… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 