Oyster

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Tyler Clark
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Photo downloaded from Oyster logo page

Most folks have heard about Netflix, an internet video streaming website for users to be able to watch movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc. What about reading books, though. We have also heard about the Nook or Amazon Fire. But what if you want to have a service like Netflix for your books? (I’ve never used Amazon Fire, so I will stick with the Nook here.) The Nook has free books you can download, but often, I find them to be not very well written. The solution I found was Oyster. This is an app for i-Devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod). The fee for unlimited books is $9.99/month. It has more than 500,000 titles including many best-sellers to choose from including Stephen King, Dan Brown, John Irving, etc.

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New Senior Editor

Posted on June 11, 2014 by Tyler Clark

AMSBlogJean Joseph served as senior editor of the AMS Graduate Student Blog for more than a year. During his tenure, he helped to proof read the blog posts, assisted with SEO, helped with the maintenance of the Quote of the Day widget, written many excellent posts, among other duties. With increased responsibility at his university, Jean has stepped down from Senior Editor but will remain an editor of the blog. We wish him the best of luck with his new duties.

It is with great pleasure that I introduce Avery Carr as the new Senior Editor. Avery is a graduate student at Emporia State University. He completed his BS in Mathematics at the University of Memphis in 2010. Please join me in welcoming Avery to his new position.

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The Eternity II Puzzle: Still Unsolved!!

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Avery Carr
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Photo Credit: Karen Carr

Between the light and darkness of mathematical knowledge exists an ever-extending boundary that pushes the limits of abstraction into the framework of tangible existence.   What can and cannot be known converges with each symbol in a collection of coherent logic.   Step after step of pure reasoning reveals an underlying component connecting complexity with simplicity.  Oftentimes, this sought after link is not easily discovered.  This is immediately true for the ever-growing list of proposed problems that span the entire spectrum of mathematics.

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Posted in AMS, General, Math in Pop Culture, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Knot Garden

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Stephanie Blanda
Photo Credit: Stephanie Blanda

Photo Credit: Stephanie Blanda

Over the Memorial Day weekend, while visiting the Toledo Botanical Garden in Toledo, OH I came across this “Knot Garden” in the herb section of the park.  I was pleasantly surprised to find this mathematical influence and it prompted me to wonder:  what mathematical objects have you come across in your everyday life?

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Presburger Arithmetic: From Model Theory to Mathematical Computing

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Maya Sharma

What good is arithmetic without multiplication? Pretty great, actually! Presburger arithmetic, formally defined as the theory of the natural numbers with addition, is a particularly interesting model of arithmetic. Because it does not formalize multiplication, Presburger arithmetic is relatively weak in terms of what it can express—weak enough, in fact, that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems don’t apply to it. While it can’t define prime numbers or division by variables, it is complete and decidable. This means it is possible to check any sentence to determine whether or not it is true in the model, i.e. whether it is a theorem or nontheorem of Presburger arithmetic. Continue reading →

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