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Opinions expressed on these pages were the views of the writers and did not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the American Mathematical Society.
Search Results for: MathBabe
Updates on Gerrymandering
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month on gerrymandering. “In a 5-4 decision along traditional conservative-liberal ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan redistricting is a political question — not reviewable by federal courts — and that those courts … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Math Communication
Tagged Cathy O'Neil, gerrymandering, government, Jeanne Clelland, MAA, Math Values, Princeton Gerrymandering Project, Rachel Levy, Sam Wang, Supreme Court
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A Conversation With Jim Propp
I recently had the tremendous pleasure of attending the 2019 BAHFest at MIT, an event in which very clever people deliver convincing arguments in support of absolutely ridiculous bad ad hoc hypotheses to a packed auditorium of nerds. Happily, this … Continue reading
Posted in Math Communication, people in math
Tagged blogging, Jim Propp, mathematical enchantments
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On Technology And Harm
Fictional stories about putting too much trust in technology often involve armies of killer robots. But what if some of today’s real threats of improperly checked technology are less thrilling but nevertheless harmful or even deadly? On the bit-player blog, … Continue reading
Posted in Data Science, Mathematics and Computing
Tagged algorithm, Brian Hayes, Cathy O'Neil, disaster, hazard, mathbabe.org, plane crash, technology
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The Fat Tech Cat Diet
Like much of the world, I seem to live in a permanent state of vexation about technology, privacy, and how to survive in a world where so many access points are guarded by hungry algorithm crunching data trolls. This is … Continue reading
Posted in Data Science, Mathematics and Computing
Tagged algorithms, Apple, Cathy O'Neil, Google, privacy, Tech
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Are Smart Cities Really That Smart?
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of science fiction, and also a lot of articles about smart cities. And the two seem to be converging to a single point. I’m not entirely sure what “smart city” means as a term … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events
Tagged Credit Score, PunkRockOR, Science Fiction, Smart Cities, Transportation
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That Neural Net That Predicts Sexual Orientation
A neural network is one way to achieve machine learning. Modeled after the human brain, a neural net teaches a computer how to do some task by processing a huge set of training data. The data passes through the network … Continue reading
Posted in Data Science
Tagged algorithms, Cathy O'Neil, mathbabe.org, neural networks, sociology
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Teaching Math to Incarcerated Students
Last month, Beth Malmskog wrote a post for the AMS blog PhD Plus Epsilon about teaching mathematics at a nearby prison. Malmskog is a math professor at Villanova, and in the post she writes about a course she and her … Continue reading
What Are You Going to Do with That?
For people in graduate school for math, the question, “What are you going to do with that?” often seems to have a clear, easy answer: “I’m going to be a math professor.” In grad school, our role models are the professors … Continue reading
Posted in Data Science, Math Education
Tagged finding a math job, industry jobs in math, math careers, mathematicians
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Maps and Math
Gauss’s Theorema Egregium was in the news recently! The news articles didn’t quite put it that way, though. Their headlines were more like, “Boston public schools map switch aims to amend 500 years of distortion.” That’s right, they’re switching from using … Continue reading
Best And Worst Of The Year
We made it through 2016, and now it’s that time when we reflect on a year gone by. Best of 2016 There were several cool breakthroughs in math this year. My personal favorite involved the famous question of how to … Continue reading
Posted in Events
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