...a companion blog to "Math-Frolic," specifically for interviews, book reviews, weekly-linkfests, and longer posts or commentary than usually found at the Math-Frolic site.

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"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show." ---Bertrand Russell (1907) Rob Gluck

"I have come to believe, though very reluctantly, that it [mathematics] consists of tautologies. I fear that, to a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-legged animal is an animal." ---Bertrand Russell (1957)

******************************************************************** Rob Gluck

Friday, November 27, 2015

This Week's Leftovers...


Thankful for another week of mathy stuff...

1) 
For the advanced amongst you, Peter Woit posts about Langlands news:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8104

2) 
Arthur Benjamin interviewed (podcast, 30-mins.) about his book, "The Magic of Math":
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/math-can-equal-fun/

3) 
Once again sweet, amiable Doron Zeilberger considers possibly telling us how he really feels ;-):
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/Opinion147.html

4) 
Yet again someone tries explaining p-values:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/not-even-scientists-can-easily-explain-p-values/

5) 
Another interesting post from Michael Harris (but I won't even attempt to synopsize what it's about!?):
https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/a-bela-bunda-and-what-it-has-to-do-with-the-sokal-affair/

6)  And Jim Holt newly-reviews Harris's book "Mathematics Without Apologies" here (requires subscription for full access):
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/dec/03/mountains-mathematics/

7)  Erica Klarreich, excellent as always (on "the Kadison-Singer problem"):
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151124-kadison-singer-math-problem/

8)  Of sequences and EKGs (via Quanta):
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151125-solution-be-still-my-pulsating-sequence/

9) Sean Carroll makes an excellent choice in giving thanks this year:
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2015/11/26/thanksgiving-10/

10)  "Retraction Watch" most often cites biomedical papers that are being retracted, but once in awhile a mathematics paper is retracted (due to honest errors):
http://retractionwatch.com/2015/11/26/honest-errors-take-down-math-paper/

11)  Hmmm... I'm wondering if even back in Civil War times kids asked, "When will I ever use this stuff?":
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2015/11/24/practical-math/

12)  And of course pick any day over at MikesMathPage and you'll likely find something of interest.

13)  Last weekend I reviewed John Allen Paulos' new book, "A Numerate Life," and this coming Sunday I'll have up my wrap-up of popular math books for 2015.


Potpourri BONUS! (extra NON-mathematical links of interest):


1)  Daniel Kish's incredible, inspiring story (of using human sonar to aid blindness) never fails to astound me! It was re-told on a segment of TED Radio Hour last week:
http://www.npr.org/2015/11/20/455906507/how-can-you-see-without-seeing


 2)  Not that I have any time leftover for these, but a nice list of "best podcasts" collected here:
https://medium.com/thoughts-on-media/a-huge-collection-of-the-best-podcasts-d97a13608bb4



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