Monthly Archives: May 2013

World Science Festival is happening now! (And there’s a lot about math going on)

A Physicist, two Mathematicians and a Philosopher walk into a room and start to discuss infinity.  This sounds like the set up to a great joke.  But it’s actually one of the events that will occur tonight at 8:00PM EST … Continue reading

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On Pregnancy and Probability

I have never been pregnant, but from what I understand, it is full of bizarre cravings, frequent bathroom breaks, and a smorgasbord of medical scans and tests. This last part is what concerns Kate Owens. She is a visiting assistant … Continue reading

Posted in Math Education, Statistics, women in math | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

This Week in Number Theory

By now you’ve probably heard the announcements of two big results in number theory: Yitang Zhang of the University of New Hampshire proved that there are infinitely many pairs of primes whose differences are under 70 million, and Harald Helfgott … Continue reading

Posted in Theoretical Mathematics | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Building the World Digital Mathematical Library

Last year over 60 new mathematical articles were appearing on arXiv every day!  What if every mathematics research article were freely available online?  What format would you want this World Digital Mathematical Library (WDML) to take on other than a gigantic … Continue reading

Posted in Publishing in Math | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Binary Bonsai and Other Mathematical “Plants”

Many of us have seen Fibonacci numbers in sunflowers and hyperbolic curvature in kale leaves. Botanica Mathematica, “a textile taxonomy of mathematical plant forms,” takes mathematical-botanical correspondences like these and throws in a little fiber art. “The Botanica Mathematica project … Continue reading

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