Monthly Archives: September 2015

That Time Terence Tao Won $500 From Paul Erdős

Suppose you have some arbitrary sequence of 1 and -1, something like this 1, 1, -1, -1, -1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, -1, -1, …. And suppose you start plucking entries from fixed intervals and adding them together. For … Continue reading

Posted in Number Theory, people in math, Publishing in Math | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Blogs for an IBL Novice

This semester, I’m teaching complex analysis using an inquiry-based learning approach. I kind of jumped into the deep end: it’s my first time to teach the subject and my first time to use this teaching method. Although I’m new to … Continue reading

Posted in Math Education | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A Cheap Alternative To Pricey Journals

I’ve written before about the Elsevier boycott and the current shift in community feelings about the traditional journal model. Namely, that it stinks. The traditional journal model, that is. This morning while perusing my Monday morning blogroll I found something … Continue reading

Posted in Publishing in Math, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

There’s Something about Pentagons

Last month, researchers Casey Mann, Jennifer McLoud, and David Von Derau at the University of Washington Bothell found a new pentagon that tiles the plane, and the crowd went wild. It’s tough for a piece of research mathematics to get … Continue reading

Posted in Math Communication, Recreational Mathematics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment