My sister, Ellen Davidson, died unexpectedly in her sleep Wednesday morning at age 77. No information yet about cause of death, although she did have Parkinson’s, so that may be it. If you knew her, you realize that she was… Read More ›
Math
The metric system has gotten an update!
What are they doing to the metric system, a.k.a. SI? I thought we all knew the standard prefixes, like kilo- for 10^3, mega- for 10^6, and so forth. So who or what is ronna-? Well, I just learned about it… Read More ›
As Tom Lehrer says, that’s mathematics!
Tom Lehrer is 97 years old! (Actually, I missed his birthday, which was three months ago.) Needless to say, he isn’t performing anymore. But still, his longevity might be attributable to his music, since so many musicians seem to live… Read More ›
The Plinko Bounce
You probably know what the title refers to, but I certainly had no idea what “Plinko” meant when I started reading this mystery a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I was halfway through the book when I finally found… Read More ›
Not on the Test
Recorded 16 years ago, but even more relevant today:
Math for English Majors
No, I was never an English major (although my mom was). I wasn’t even a math major (although I taught math for decades). But, as a linguistics major, I had entwining connections with both English and math, as linguistics intersects… Read More ›
Two surprising Ancestry conclusions
Capitalization matters. Occasionally. The title of this post can be read as written, with an upper-case “A,” or it can be read as spoken aloud, with a lower-case “a” (not that case choice can easily be heard in speech, though… Read More ›
Why accelerate in math?
Looking back over five decades (more or less) of teaching high-school mathematics, I estimate that maybe 30–40 of the students I have taught over the years were truly accelerated in math. But let’s define our terms first: So, you ask,… Read More ›
The Mathematical Murder of Innocence
You could call this a non-fiction novel. You could, that is, if that genre name hadn’t been pre-empted by Truman Capote back in the ’60s. Or you could call it historical fiction, if that genre name hadn’t had a long… Read More ›
She is often considered the first female mathematician.
Who am I talking about? Hypatia of Alexandria, of course. In March of 415 C.E. “she was murdered by a mob of Christians” (for some strange value of “Christians”) according to a well-sourced article in Wikipedia. To see why they… Read More ›
What’s math got to do with it? Alaska’s new voting system would be good for Massachusetts…perhaps.
Because of its small population—despite being the largest state in area—Alaska gets to elect only one member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Until last year it used the traditional system: a separate primary for each party chooses one finalist… Read More ›
Forming Our Future
Eight months ago I wrote a post about our first attempt at interdisciplinarity at the Crimson Summer Academy. It was a start. Perhaps even a good start, but still no more than a start. This summer we are keeping the… Read More ›
Which trig is which?
A friend of mine claims to have had a bad experience with trigonometry in high school. Is this because she had a bad teacher? (Most people blame their teacher.) Or is it because she was a bad student? Or is… Read More ›
“Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.”
You’ve always wanted to learn the truth about the interaction between numbers and names, haven’t you? James Propp will be your teacher. In this month’s Mathematical Enrichments, he makes this observation: Poincaré once wrote “Mathematics is the art of giving… Read More ›
Popular culture, math, and computer science
This puzzle comes from mathematical physicist John Baez. That’s John, not Joan (she is not a mathematical physicist, as far as I know), though they are in fact first cousins. You don’t normally expect that a physicist with a Ph.D…. Read More ›
What’s so beautiful about algebra?
“Nothing,” say some of my students. “You can always find the value of x,” say some others. “It’s useful in real life,” says one. “No it isn’t!” says another. By this point we’ve moved far afield from the original question…. Read More ›
A known unknown? Or maybe it’s an unknown known? Or what?
You do remember Donald Rumsfeld, don’t you? Famous (or infamous) for many things, including the distinction between known unknowns and unknown unknowns, not to mention known knowns and unknown knowns. Confused yet? James Harbeck—whom I’ve cited a dozen times in… Read More ›
Clearly a ¼-pounder is larger than a ⅓-pounder. After all, 4 is larger than 3. Right?
Americans don’t understand numbers—especially when those numbers are fractions. You may know the true story about Arby’s customers who were convinced that a new ⅓-pound burgers contained less meat than the familiar ¼-pounder, since 4 is larger than 3. Maybe… Read More ›
Making math relevant?
Good rhetorical question from SMBC: “Do kids ever look up from Minecraft or Pokemon cards or a Harry Potter book and say ‘This is boring because it’s not relevant to real life’?” And yet that’s exactly what too many kids… Read More ›
Fantastic ______s and Where to Find Them
This book reminds me of the caller who asked the Magliozzi brothers a question about his Volkswagen Quantum: he couldn’t get it repaired because he didn’t know any Quantum mechanics. What’s the connection? Well, first you need to know what… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 