-
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: evelynjlamb
The Human Side of Computer Science
Dick Lipton is a computer science professor at Georgia Tech who thinks P=NP, and Ken Regan is a computer science professor at the University of Buffalo who thinks P≠NP. Together, they are “Pip,” a Dick-Kens character. Today I want to … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and Computing
Tagged computer science, Dick Lipton, Ken Regan, P=NP, quantum computing
2 Comments
When Life Hands You Lemons, Make Fibonacci Lemonade
I’m so glad I found Andrea Hawksley’s blog earlier this year! Hawksley is a software developer, mathematical artist, co-founder of the Octahedral Group, an organization of Bay Area mathematical artists. She works on the eleVR project, where she helps make … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and the Arts, Recreational Mathematics
Tagged chess, fibonacci lemonade, G4G, games, Gathering for Gardner, mathematical art, mathematical food, origami
Comments Off on When Life Hands You Lemons, Make Fibonacci Lemonade
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 engineering, estimation, fermi problems, fun math, math, mathematics, physics, Randall Munroe, xkcd
Comments Off on Fermi Estimation with Liquid Mercury Splash Fights
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 analysis, Patrick Stevens, real analysis, teaching analysis
3 Comments
Climate Science Blogs to Follow for Earth Day
This blog has now made almost exactly one trip around the sun! We kicked things off last year on Earth Day with the mathematics of planet earth, and today I want to highlight some more posts about our planet. On … Continue reading
Posted in Applied Math
Tagged climate change, climate science, Earth Day, geometry, john baez, math, mathematics, Steve Easterbrook, Tamsin Edwards
Comments Off on Climate Science Blogs to Follow for Earth Day
Bad Statistics: Ignore or Call Out?
Andrew Gelman has been wondering how much time he should spend criticizing crappy research, and so am I. He wrote the post after a discussion with Jeff Leek of Simply Statistics about replication and criticism. Harsh criticism of preliminary studies … Continue reading
Posted in Statistics
Tagged Andrew Gelman, bad journalism, bad statistics, Cathy O'Neil, Jeff Leek, John D. Cook, journals
2 Comments
Geometry and the Imagination
If you like geometric group theory or amazing pictures (but especially geometric group theory), you might want to start reading Geometry and the Imagination, written by University of Chicago mathematician Danny Calegari. I’ve been following it for a while, but … Continue reading
Posted in Theoretical Mathematics
Tagged Alden Walker, Danny Calegari, geometry, hyperbolic 3-manifolds, Ian Agol, low-dimensional topology, research blogging, topology, virtual haken conjecture, visualizations
Comments Off on Geometry and the Imagination
On Teaching Analysis
Timothy Gowers, University of Cambridge mathematician and Fields Medalist, is teaching an analysis class this term, and fortunately for me, he’s blogging about it. Analysis IA is part of the first-year math major sequence at the University of Cambridge, and … Continue reading
Posted in Math Education
Tagged real analysis, teaching analysis, terry tao, timothy gowers, vicky neale
4 Comments
Why Should We Fund Math Research?
As my co-blogger Brie Finegold mentioned last month, Cathy O’Neil of mathbabe.org has been writing about how MOOCs might change the face of math departments and, ultimately, how math research gets funded. O’Neil is concerned that without calculus classes to … Continue reading
Mistakes Are Interesting
I just finished grading my first midterms of the semester, and I’m learning a lot about how my students think through the mistakes they made. (With apologies to Tolstoy, I’m definitely experiencing a bit of “correct solutions are all alike; … Continue reading