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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.
Author Archives: annahaensch
Searching For Einstein
No, not Einstein. We’re searching for einstein. Literally “ein Stein,” which translated from German means “one stone.” The one stone we’re looking for is a very special type of tile which, when repeated, can cover an infinite floor without leaving … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged hexagonal tiling, Michael Rao, Mikesmathpage, pentagonal tiling, tilings
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Take The Math Less Traveled
Mathlesstraveled is a blog “dedicated to exploring beautiful mathematics.” The blog is written by Brent Yorgey, an assistant professor in the department of math and computer science at Hendrix College, who lives closer to the computer science end of mathematics. … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and Computing, Mathematics and the Arts
Tagged Brent Yorgey, mathlesstraveled
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Math In The Capital
A few weeks ago I had occasion to visit the capital — and the Capitol — and as is the custom in Washington D.C., I had coffee with interesting people. We’ve blogged quite a bit here about the expressionless face … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events
Tagged Capital Currents, Catherine Paolucci, Congressional Fellowship, Karen Saxe, Policy, politics
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Math Puzzles To Pass The Time
There are two types of people in this world: those that can only lie, and those that can only tell the truth. You might recognize that as the opening clause of so many knights and knaves problems. These are classic … Continue reading
Black Hat, White Hat
Meanwhile, over in computer science…several days ago WannaCry almost brought the world to its knees until an anonymous tech blogger, MalwareTech, brought it to a screeching halt by activating a hiding-in-plain-sight kill-switch. MalwareTech blogged about the wild 12 hour epic … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Mathematics and Computing
Tagged computer science, cryptography, cybersecurity, hacker, malware, WannaCry
1 Comment
Cook’s Take on Benford
Lately, I’ve been having fun reading John D Cook’s Blog. Cook is an applied mathematics consultant who blogs and tweets up a storm about all sorts of topics mathematical, statistical, computational, and scientific. He maintains 18 daily tip Twitter feeds … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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Growing Up Gifted
It seems that Hollywood can’t get enough of mathematicians. Most recently, Gifted hit theaters. It’s the story of the mathematically gifted seven-year-old Mary who is living with her uncle in Florida. We follow Mary’s struggle adjusting to a typical public … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and the Arts
Tagged Evelyn Lamb, Gifted, Jordan Ellenberg, math in the movies, Math Movies, Movies, Terrence Tao
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Divorce And Margarine
The correlation between the divorce rate in Maine and the per capita consumption of margarine, though compelling, is totally spurious. This is just one of the many such correlations that Tyler Vigen explores on Spurious Correlations, and in his book … Continue reading
Posted in Statistics
Tagged bad statistics, fivethirtyeight, Spurious Correlations, Statistics, Tyler Vigen
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Does This Make Sense?
Some of my favorite questions to ask in class involve drawing up some sort of a mathematical model for my students and asking: does this make sense? Whether matching curves to the heating and cooling laws of my morning coffee, … Continue reading
Diversify Your Blogfolio
It’s March. As the sun sets on black history month and rises on women’s history month, I feel inclined, as I do every March, to draw attention to some of the great women who blog about math as well as … Continue reading
Posted in Issues in Higher Education, women in math
Tagged Diversity, Evelyn Lamb, Frances Su, inclusion/exclusion, Piper Harron, Roots of Unity, Women In Math
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