Author Archives: bfinegold

$${Mathematicians} \subset {Artists}$$

Posted on February 1, 2015 by bfinegold

Certain equations or concepts strike us as beautiful, stunning even. As she walked amongst the aquatints on the wall of Yale Art Gallery’s latest exhibit entitled “Concinnitas”, Jen Christiansen posed the title question of her blog post: “Math is Beautiful, … Continue reading →

Posted in Math Education, Mathematics and the Arts, Uncategorized | Tagged Ampere's Law, Ben Volta, Concinnitas, Daniel Rockmore, David Mumford, Enrico Bombieri, Freeman Dyson, Manjul Bhargava, Math and Art, Math is Beautiful, Michael Atiyah, Murray Gell-Man, Peter Lax, Richard Karp, Simon Donaldson, STEAM, Stephen Smale, Steven Weinberg | 1 Comment

Not-So-Confident Intervals

Posted on November 29, 2014 by bfinegold

Here is a test for you. Let’s say 300 mathematicians were polled concerning how many hours of TV they watch per week. What does it mean to say that a 95% confidence interval for the average number of hours of … Continue reading →

Posted in Applied Math, Issues in Higher Education, Math Education, Statistics | Tagged Alex Etz, Chirstian Jarrett, Confidence Intervals, p-values, Statistics, statistics education, Suz Ward | 1 Comment

e is for Ebola

Posted on October 1, 2014 by bfinegold

A recent NPR blog features a few quotes emphasizing a math word that is lamentably absent from many readers’ vocabularies: “It’s spreading and growing exponentially,” President Obama said Tuesday. “This is a disease outbreak that is advancing in an exponential … Continue reading →

Posted in Applied Math, Biomath, Math Education, Mathematics and Computing, people in math, Statistics | Tagged Amy Greer, Basic Reproduction Ratio, Caitlyn Rivers, computational epidemiology, David Hartley, Ebola, Effective Reproduction Ratio, Ellsworth Campbell, Exponential growth, IDEA, SIR model | Comments Off

Medaling Mathematicians

Posted on August 18, 2014 by bfinegold

You may consider the Fields Medal a boon to the mathematical community as it showcases amazing young mathematicians and brings math into the limelight. Or you may view the Fields Medal as an unfortunate reinforcement of the notion that mathematics … Continue reading →

Posted in Events, Math Education, Mathematics and the Arts, Number Theory, people in math, Theoretical Mathematics, Uncategorized, women in math | Tagged Awards in Math, fields medal, First Woman Winner of Fields Medal, International Congress of Mathematics | Comments Off

Alias, Schmalias

Posted on August 10, 2014 by bfinegold

While the great line from Romeo and Juliet: “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” rings true, would a digital rose smell as sweet? We often think of the digital world as a mere “renaming” of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Applied Math, K-12 Mathematics, Math Education, Mathematics and Computing, Recreational Mathematics | Tagged Aliasing, Chris Lusto, David Parsons, Digital Signal Processing, digitizing, frequency, math and dance, math lessons, Mathalicious, sampling, Wagon Wheel Effect | 1 Comment

Mathematician Presents Flawed Proof – in a work of fiction

Posted on July 13, 2014 by bfinegold

Following Evelyn’s last post about the new Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, I will now discuss the opposite of wild mathematical success. Depending on how excited you are about public speaking, the moments before giving a talk at a math conference may be … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Mathematics, Mathematics and the Arts, people in math, Publishing in Math, Recreational Mathematics, Theoretical Mathematics | Tagged Leonard Michaels, math mistakes, Mathematics in Literature, Perko Pair, Rebecca Curtis, The New Yorker | 4 Comments

Visualize Your Algorithms

Posted on July 1, 2014 by bfinegold

As a college student in the ‘90’s with a penchant for “visual learning” I was never drawn to computer science. My one computer science class focused mostly on syntax and basic logic. Had shuffling and sorting been presented as eye-catching … Continue reading →

Posted in Applied Math, Math Education, Mathematics and Computing, Mathematics and the Arts | Tagged algorithms, animations, computer science and mathematics, data, sampling, visualizations | 1 Comment

Summer Reading List

Posted on June 1, 2014 by bfinegold

My Summer Reading List Having an industry job, I will not have any real change in my routine as summer hits. But I still think of summer as the season of reading for pleasure. So what are some new … Continue reading →

Posted in Applied Math, Mathematics and the Arts, people in math, Recreational Mathematics, Theoretical Mathematics | Tagged Book reviews, summer math reading | 1 Comment

Crowd-Funded Mathematics

Posted on May 24, 2014 by bfinegold

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

Narrowing The Gender Gap

Posted on May 10, 2014 by bfinegold

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 gender gap, Larry Summers, Math gene, Neil DeGrasse Tyson | 2 Comments