Collaborative Mathematics in the NYT

By Kareem Carr

An intriguing article, which ties together the recent debate over a proof by Vinay Deolalikar of Hewlett-Packard and the emergence of collaborative mathematics online has appeared on the New York Times site. It might be fair to say that finding new ways of collaborating online is becoming one of the most exciting sociological changes in science today.

It is not at all clear how this will all turn out. One promising alternative, Google Wave, has been cancelled. This is an acutely sad event for many in the mathematics community who had already been developing tools to do mathematics on Google Wave. For instance, there were several LaTeX display tools.

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What Do These Students Want?!: Some Teaching Tips from the Other Side

Guest post by Kate Cunningham

Kate writes on the topics of online university rankings for onlineuniversityrankings.com.  She welcomes your questions and comments.

About a year ago, Tom Wright posted some very insightful graduate student teaching tips here at the AMS blog. These tips ran the gamut in giving solid advice for what is inevitably a scary experience—teaching. Wright covered the importance of solving problems beforehand as well as writing on the board and, in the end, just relaxing.

As someone who sat on the other side of the fence not too long ago, I was lucky enough to have taken some great undergraduate math courses taught by passionate and helpful TAs. From a former pupil’s perspective (who later did some teaching herself), I offer a bit of personal advice for graduate students who may have forgotten what it’s like to be a miserable, scared, and confused undergrad. Continue reading

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On Having Useful things to Say

By Kareem Carr

When it comes to advice, I am of the opinion that the best advice is really specific. Whether, it’s finding a good bank or picking a place to live, the middle of the road advice that has something in it for everyone just doesn’t get the job done. Sometimes, one realizes this immediately. The advice is off the mark! The approach doesn’t suit your personality. The goals don’t resemble anything you want for yourself. Sometimes, it dawns on you later. You nodded your head for most of the discussion and you were excited to try things out for yourself. So, you carefully readied yourself for implementation and suddenly there were gaps. The fitness expert had said what type of shoes to get but he hadn’t specified exactly which stores to visit. Or you find the store, but they don’t have any in your size. Now what? If your expert is somebody who is accessible and willing to through every single detail, then you are on your way. If not, then it can be challenging.

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Mathematics on Reddit

By Kareem Carr

Reddit is a social news website where users can use voting to determine the rank of different news stories. The users provide the links. Additionally, there are sections on different topics. Of relevance to math grad blog readers is the mathematics section. If you have some spare time, it’s a fun way to read about math related topics that you might not otherwise hear about.

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Diversity and Mathematics

By Kareem Carr

In preparation for a wider discussion on racial, gender, and ethnic diversity and of persons with disabilities in American mathematics, I have been doing some reading.  The number of relevant groups is much larger than I had anticipated.  While, it is common to note that African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans are underrepresented in mathematics, a few groups may have escaped popular attention.

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