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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: evelynjlamb
Solidarity with Scientists
Mathematics has an interesting relationship to science. People often think of mathematicians as a subset of scientists, and scientists definitely use mathematics in their work, but our day-to-day work, careers, and the kinds of problems and thinking that interest us most … Continue reading
Posted in Events
Tagged climate change, climate science, immigration, mathematics in society, politics
3 Comments
More Graph Isomorphism Drama
That plucky graph isomorphism problem is at it again! In November 2015, University of Chicago computer scientist Laszlo Babai announced an algorithm to determine whether two graphs are isomorphic in quasipolynomial time, and there was much rejoicing. (My co-blogger Anna … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and Computing
Tagged computational complexity, computer science, graph isomorphism, graph theory, Laszlo Babai
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Mona Chalabi’s Datasketches
Hand-drawn data visualizations about farts and penises! If that has you hooked, no need to read any further. Just surf over to Mona Chalabi’s Instagram account and enjoy. I first encountered Chalabi through her “Dear Mona” column at FiveThirtyEight, which … Continue reading
Posted in Statistics
Tagged data vizualization, Mona Chalabi, Statistics
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What Should Mathematicians Do Now?
Mathematicians sometimes pretend we are above the everyday vicissitudes of life, preferring to inhabit a realm of abstraction and perfection, but that’s a lie. We live here too. We are voters, citizens, residents, and teachers. What happens in our country … Continue reading
Posted in History of Mathematics, people in math
Tagged elections, keeping students safe, mathematics in society, politics, voting
8 Comments
Which One Doesn’t Belong?
1, 2, 4,…. What’s the next number in the sequence? I was a rule-follower as a kid, so I always got the “right” answer on questions like that, but they still bugged me. Sure, 8 would be predictable, but why … Continue reading
Topology in the Limelight
Topology is having a moment. Maybe not as much as this never-ending election season or this Pringles “ringle” with 40,000 retweets and counting (seriously, you should go look—it’s a self-supporting ring of potato chips, need I say more?), but it’s been getting more … Continue reading
Celebrating Latin@s and Hispanics in Mathematics
September 15-October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month in the U.S. (In case you were wondering, it starts on September 15 to coincide with the Independence Days of several Latin American countries.) The new website Lathisms.org helps us in the math … Continue reading
Posted in people in math
Tagged Diversity, Hispanic mathematicians, lathisms, Latina mathematicians, Latino mathematicians
1 Comment
In Praise of People Who Tell Us How to Play with New Toys
I’ve been thinking about getting a 3D printer for a long time but haven’t taken the plunge yet. Aside from the money, space, and inevitable proliferation of small plastic things to step on, part of me is worried I wouldn’t … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and the Arts, Recreational Mathematics
Tagged 3d printing, Albert Hwang, Andrea Hawksley, Emily Eifler, henry segerman, laura taalman, Mike Lawler, Mike Stay, Rose Eveleth, Vi Hart, VR
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Happy Birthday, Dear arXiv
On August 14, the beloved preprint server arXiv.org turned 25. For many mathematicians, including me, it’s almost impossible to imagine doing or reading research without it or the over a million papers it lovingly collects and stores for us. Physicist … Continue reading
The Pseudocontext 2016 Deserves
2016 has been the year of the lolsob. I have my reasons for feeling that way, and I’m guessing you might too. In that light, I’ve especially started looking forward to Dan Meyer’s “pseudocontext Saturday” posts. In each one, he finds a picture … Continue reading →