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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.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Bees and Bombs
His name is Dave, he used to do physics, now he makes GIFs. Dave is known on Twitter as beesandbombs and he has a Tumblr of the same name. David Whyte studied theoretical physics as an undergraduate at Trinity College … Continue reading
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Some Stories of Journals Behaving Badly
Hoax papers have a long and time-honored history. Ten years ago a group of students from MIT wrote a program that randomly generated totally nonsensical computer science papers. One of their bogus papers was accepted by a conference and it … Continue reading
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
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Tagged hexagonal tiling, Michael Rao, Mikesmathpage, pentagonal tiling, tilings
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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
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How Polling Works…Or Doesn’t Work
From the perpetual pit in my stomach, to the sleepless nights, to the eyes bloodshot from peering at endless forecast models and polling predictions, only one thing can be true: the election is nigh upon us. In a time of … Continue reading
Posted in Events, Statistics, Uncategorized
Tagged Election Forecasting, Mathematical Modeling, Polling
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The Mathematical Tweet Beat
I was a twitter skeptic for a very long time. And now my love affair with twitter is so deep, it’s hard to even remember what my reservations were in the first place. I first joined in 2013, compelled by … Continue reading
Posted in Math Communication, Uncategorized
Tagged math tweets, twitter
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More To Math and Art Than Just Phi
I recently became aware of the mathematical artist Lun-Yi London Tsai. Tsai has a master’s degree in math, and it is clear that he has studied a great deal of math in his life. His mathematical paintings and drawings are … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and the Arts, Uncategorized
Tagged Alejandro Guijarro, art, chain complex, chalkboard, Hopf Fibration, Lun-Yi Tsai
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Carnival of Mathematics 137
Welcome to the 137th Carnival of Mathematics! Let me begin with a story about pizza. I was at one of my favorite pizzerias in New Haven recently where they have the craziest method for slicing pizza: start with a standard … Continue reading
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Tagged Brian Hayes, carnival of mathematics, David Castelvecchi, Gonzalo Ciruelos, Kevin Knudson, Mark Dominus, mochizuki, Nancy Yi Liang
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Beware of Counterintuitive Results: Police Shooting Edition
Last week the New York Times ran the following headline: “Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings.” The article addresses a study currently underway by Roland G. Freyer Jr., a Harvard University economist. … Continue reading
Posted in Statistics, Uncategorized
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Mathematicians On A Plane
Forgive the obvious humble brag, but all the traveling I’ve done this summer has me worn out. I’m posting to you from Hamburg today, where I’m enjoying some interstitial time between conferences. To most mathematicians, summer means travel, and travel … Continue reading