An argument for “meta-mathematics”

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Luke Wolcott

by Luke Wolcott

Definition: meta-mathematics – the study of the human context of research mathematics. Includes the sociology of the math community, the psychology and cognitive science of mathematics, and implicitly the history and philosophy of math. (Yes, I’m co-opting the term.)

Have you ever wanted to get inside the head of one of those “brilliant” mathematicians? Did you know that the mathematician Jacques Hadamard conducted a survey of well-known mathematicians – asking them specific questions about how they do math – and carefully analyzed the responses?

Have you ever stopped to think about beauty in mathematics? Did you know Thomas Tymoczko wrote an article exploring the possibility of a theory of mathematical aesthetics?

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One More Call For New Writers for the Blog

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Kareem Carr

by Kareem Carr

Last month, I invited readers of the blog, if they were so inclined, to consider writing for the AMS Graduate Student Blog. I would like to say that it was quite a successful effort and we have several new editors. If you’ve been feeling like it’s too late to try your hand at auditioning. It’s not.

If you are interested, please email me, Kareem Carr, Editor-in-chief.

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My First Teaching Experience

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Paul

by Sudip Paul

I’d like to talk about my first teaching experience. It was in the Fall of 2010 – I had to teach integral calculus. I had taught before but it was always 2-3 students at a time. I had no experience of classroom teaching. So I was more than a little worried. My university had a pretty extensive TA training program which ran for an entire week. I attended all the workshops religiously, took notes, read and reread the TA manual. Still I found myself ill-prepared. With hindsight, my lack of confidence was pretty natural but at that point I was super-scared to face my students.

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Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Mathematics

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Brian Katz

by Brian Katz

In Mathematics, more than in any other field, themes of gender, race, religion, and sexuality seem irrelevant. We push abstraction further than any other discipline, so ignoring these themes may be necessary for our disciplinary work. And yet, understanding the relationship between these themes and our professional lives or our students lives has clearly become important. I have very few, if any, answers to this problem, but I share my thoughts in the hope that we can collect the kernels of a solution spread throughout the community of practitioners.

This article starts off abstractly but eventually moves to a few anecdotes that I’d like to understand better and finishes with some questions for the reader to consider.

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Mathematics and Wolfram

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Tyler Clark

by Tyler Clark

I am sure many of you have used Mathematica. I am on Wolfram’s mailing list and just received an update from them today. The company will be holding a conference in Champaign, IL on October 19-21. The conference website states:

Join us for the Wolfram Technology Conference 2011, which brings together leading experts to discuss how Mathematica and other Wolfram technologies are shaping computation and algorithm-rich development.

A forum for users from all fields, the event provides a unique opportunity to learn how to develop and deploy Wolfram platforms efficiently—learning from experts and fellow attendees.

View the full Issue 3, 2011 of Wolfram Insider for Education.

If you cannot make it to their conference in Champaign, do not worry. They have plenty of other opportunities to learn about their products. They have a wide variety of free online seminars.

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