Monthly Archives: May 2014

Fermi Estimation with Liquid Mercury Splash Fights

The semester is over (sorry, quarter system folks, but you can get your revenge in August and September), and you just want to put your feet up and surf the Internet. Of course, there are lots of ways you might accidentally learn … Continue reading

Posted in Math Education, Recreational Mathematics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Fermi Estimation with Liquid Mercury Splash Fights

Crowd-Funded Mathematics

What if your research was funded by 100 strangers who had read your research proposal online and clicked “donate”? You’d feel responsible to write about your research in a more widely accessible way. You might pledge to provide monthly updates … Continue reading

Posted in Applied Math, Math Education, Theoretical Mathematics | 16 Comments

Discovering Proofs

Patrick Stevens is an undergraduate mathematics student at the University of Cambridge, and I’ve really been enjoying his blog recently. He’s been doing a series of posts about discovering proofs of standard real analysis theorems. He writes that the series … Continue reading

Posted in Math Education, Theoretical Mathematics | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Narrowing The Gender Gap

This 3-minute clip of Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson is the kind of thing that might provide just the right bit of encouragement to someone struggling to express their passion for STEM. Neil DeGrasse Tyson Said What He Thinks About Race … Continue reading

Posted in Issues in Higher Education, people in math, women in math | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments