Mathblogging.org -- the Blog

Mathblogging.org Weekly Picks

Peter Krautzberger — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:53:21 +0000

We try to read every blog post that goes through Mathblogging.org. For the Weekly Picks, we collect posts from last week that give you an impression of what the mathematical blogosphere has to offer.

Education

Popinga (translation) offers and introduction into graphs in art, with a surprise application.
Math+Tech=Fun argues that learning is not automatically fun if it is presented in the form of a game; it needs to incorporate the sensation of purpose, mastery, and choices.
Angrymath explains the dangers of not using enough words in exercises, and instead relying on the assumption that things are obvious from context
Quod Erat Demonstrandum computes the speed of light, using a mirror on the moon!

Community

Jeromy Anglim looks at the new CognitiveScience.Stackexchange site and explains why researchers and student should be active on Q&A sites.
Xi’an’s Og studies a CrossValidated.SE question.

Research

At the Secret Blogging Seminar, David Speyer gives some background on the recent reports on flaws in RSA encryption.
At Turing’s Invisible Hand, Noam Nissan explains the excitement about the recently de-classified letter from John Nash to NSA.

Exposition, Art

Out of the Norm offers advice on how to kill a dragon (the puzzle, that is).
Peter Cameron points you towards the Raymon Brownell exhibition in South London.

Enjoy!

Mathblogging.org Weekly Picks

Fred von Heymann — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 22:09:50 +0000

We try to read every blog post that goes through Mathblogging.org. For the Weekly Picks, we collect posts from last week that give you an impression of what the mathematical blogosphere has to offer.

Community

mathbabe takes a look at a recent study on math, gender & stereotype threat.
Tim Gowers et al released a formal statement on thecostofknowledge.com signed by 34 internationally renowned researchers.

Research

At Computational Complexity, Bill Gasarch announces that the 17×17 problem has been solved, meaning he’ll pay the promised $289; bit-player visualized and discusses the solution.
Nuit Blanche does exemplary pre/post publication peer review.

Exposition

Gaussianos (translation) discusses two surprising results for quadrilaterals, Thébault’s and Varignon’s Theorem.
Meandering through Mathematics explains how a calculator calculates logarithms, numerical analysis and all.

Education

dy/dan kicks off a huge discussion on how useful computers can be in math education, and how they change it.
Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere asks how others are planning their classes, and gets lots of answers.
Delta Scape ponders about the fact that engaging lessons might be fun, but most of the time let us miss the point.

Enjoy!

Mathblogging.org Weekly Picks

Peter Krautzberger — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:21:02 +0000

We try to read every blog post that goes through Mathblogging.org. For the Weekly Picks, we collect posts from last week that give you an impression of what the mathematical blogosphere has to offer.

Education

Casting out Nines wants to make students own, not rent education.
Better Explained shows how logarithms offer the right perspective in the real world.
Angles of Reflection has a positive take on grading, for a change.
Exzuberant calls for more cultural and historic context in mathematics education.

Research

Nuit Blanche explains the calibration issue in compressive sensing.
Regularize gives an introduction to a mathematical model of consensus.
And so on… revisits Frank Quinn’s article and the grand old question what mathematics is.

Community

Mathalicious re-examines Khan Academy after a year of media buzz — this time, it’s different.
mathbabe makes a great point: let them game the model.
David Bressoud examines trends in race/ethnicity and gender represenation in mathematics.

Art, Essays etc.

Travels in a Mathematical World debates historical accuracy or: “Apparently Gauss got in this bar fight with Hilbert…”
Mathcreation gives a short tutorial on how to draw a Mandelbrot set.

Enjoy!

Mathblogging.org Weekly Picks

Peter Krautzberger — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:45:38 +0000

We try to read every blog post that goes through Mathblogging.org. For the Weekly Picks, we collect posts from last week that give you an impression of what the mathematical blogosphere has to offer.

History, Art, Essays etc.

Francis’s Science News (translated) explains the dance of viscous liquid on conveyor belts.
komplexify muses on THE QUESTION.
Scienza e Musica (translated) celebrates Giacomo Leopardi.

Education

f(t) function of time shares a game designed for the learning of basic logic.
Mathy McMatherson reflects on the effect of not assigning homework.

Research

Math Drudge examines if probability refutes evolution (spoiler: no).
Popinga (translated) examines a recent arXiv paper on the history of the Four Color Theorem.
exzuberant looks back on a full year of Standards Based Grading.

Community

Mathematics&Statistics at Williams College celebrates Susan Loepp.
At Computational Complexity, Martin Fürer remembers Ernst Specker.
At Images des Mathématiques (translated) , Lawrence Meerssemann remembers Marco Brunella.
mathematik, bücher & meer (translated) offers a nice collection of links in the honor of Hilbert’s 150th birthday.
At Azimuth, John Baez follows up on Tim Gowers’s Elsevier boycott (for more cf. the Polymath Wiki).

Shorts

Mr Honner shares a math photo with fascinating projections.

Enjoy!

Mathblogging.org Weekly Picks

Peter Krautzberger — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:01:33 +0000

We try to read every blog post that goes through Mathblogging.org. For the Weekly Picks, we collect posts from last week that give you an impression of what the mathematical blogosphere has to offer.

{A few more posts than usual since we didn’t post last week.}

Community

The Accidental Mathematician offers insight into the amount of administrative work of a full professor.
A CS Professor enjoys 5 minute presentations by job-seekers at ICTS.
Nuit Blanche writes on open access and open data.
Doron Zeilberger remembers Herbert Wilf.
Frank Morgan’s Blog collects resources for undergraduate research opportunities.
Piece of Mind explores more evidence that the criticism of NSERC’s policy changes is shared by communities other than the mathematical one.
Last but not least, Timothy Gowers announces not contribute to Elsevier journals in any way.

Art, Essays etc.

Rhapsody in Numbers creates a fractal for the Collatz 3n+1 problem (which was picked up by Gaussianos, translation).
Mr. Palomar explains cellular automata’s chess of life (translation).
Out of the Norm gets from boarding planes to pigeon holes.
Intersections shares Maurice Kendall’s poem Hiawatha Designs an Experiment.
travels in a mathematical world improves Ian Stewarts’ The Guardian list of popular mathematics books by crowdsourcing.
matheminutes brings chaos to your calculator — with bifurcation and all.
Second Rate Minds is annoyed by hot light bulbs and other puzzles.

Education

Angles of Reflection takes on the big one: grades.
Piece of Mind introduces Small Number and the efforts to communicate mathematics better to First Nation students.
Diary of a maths teacher discusses why society needs to change how it views math and why we should dare to bring (true) math into the classroom
Republic of Math shares nice example for (true) mathematics that can be done in the classroom.
dy/dan shares a transcript of a panel discussion with Keith Devlin, Karim Ani and Dan Meyer himself.
Musing Mathematically coins the term “atomic skills”, important for understanding, but are uninteresting on their own
Il piccolo Friedrich shares a personal story of becoming a teacher and a great example of how to present difficult material in the classroom (translation).

Research

The preprint on the minimal number of hints necessary for a sudoku has been picked up Maurizio Codogno (translation) and the mathematical approach is sketched out at Rhapsody in Numbers.
Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference and Social Science asks for input regarding issues in the ethics and statistics.
M-Phi explains the elementary philosophical resolutions of paradoxes.
Xi’an’s Og is still Bayesian even if Stephen Senn thinks otherwise.

Shorts

neverendingbooks combines a 48 posts into an ebook Monsters and Moonshine.

Enjoy!

Mathblogging.org at Science Online 2012

Peter Krautzberger — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:56:05 +0000

Since the weekly picks are behind schedule (wikipedia blacked out somehow and we had to work on our homework problems without cheating ), here’s some unrelated news.

This afternoon, I will be representing mathblogging.org at ScienceOnline2012, dubbed the South By Southwest of science blogging. It’s been a fantastic un-conference so far, exceeding my wildest expectations.

I will be presenting a small tech demo and, if technology won’t abandon me, I will be showing off a rough draft of our complete redesign of mathblogging.org. Be sure to check the twitter feed for #scio12. Hopefully, this will help scientists and science communicators to find all the amazing work the mathematical blogging community is doing already.

Joining the protest against SOPA

Peter Krautzberger — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:53:36 +0000

We are supporting the strike against SOPA and PIPA both on the blog and on mathblogging.org.

Mathblogging.org relies exclusively on the great community of mathematical bloggers, a community that is driven by user-generated content. But much more is at stake, so please follow the links on the ribbon to learn more

Mathblogging.org Weekly Picks

Peter Krautzberger — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:09:42 +0000

We try to read every blog post that goes through Mathblogging.org. For the Weekly Picks, we collect posts from last week that give you an impression of what the mathematical blogosphere has to offer.

{A few more posts than usual since we couldn’t post last week.}

Community

The highlight of last week was, of course, the Joint Mathematics Meeting 2012 in Boston. There was lots of blogging and tweeting afoot; here’s our custom google search for “joint math meetings 2012″ as well as the twitter search for the official #jmm2012 hashtag — this will keep you busy for about a year, right in time for next year’s meeting in San Diego.
The Accidental Mathematician discusses the state of the profession.
Ars Physica reviews the very rich year in high energy physics (translation).
Low Dimensional Topology announces an experiment of combining a class, a seminar and video lectures on a paper in progress.
My Biased Coin describes the fun of collaborating with great people.

Art, Essays etc.

matthen takes an astroidal curve to the next level.
Mr Honner suffers gladly for a piece of icy mathematical beauty.
Gli Studenti Oggi starts a new series on Eratosthenes (translation).
Nanoexplanations ponders lack of industry implementations at the example of the recent Stratfor hack.

Education

Angrymath offers a neat example for how to bring statistics into the classroom.
Musing Mathematically makes a case for teachers to not just teach, but DO math too.
Math Hombre observes how modern technology can (and does) change us and the younger generations.
Popinga shares a beautiful exposition on self-reference, tautologies and contradictions (translation).

Research

Gyre&Gimble expands an article on abuse of notation.
Felix Breuer recaps the experience of giving a different kind of course ”Using intuitive geometry”
The Math Less Traveled arrives at a self-square decadic number.

Shorts

Two youtube heavyweights, one mission: Vi Hart joins forces with Khan Academy.
Gaussianos reports that the Spanish Institute of Mathematics has been founded (translation).

Enjoy!

No Weekly Picks this week

Peter Krautzberger — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:47:33 +0000

This week was just too busy with most of us hanging out at the Joint Meetings. We’ll return next week. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Mathblogging.org Weekly Picks

Peter Krautzberger — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:42:38 +0000

We try to read every blog post that goes through Mathblogging.org. For the Weekly Picks, we collect posts from last week that give you an impression of what the mathematical blogosphere has to offer.

History, Journalism, Essays etc.

bit-player reflects on the acceleration of history regarding the paradigms of physics.
At amazings.es, Clara Grima explained how to explain her research in computational geometry to 3 year olds (translation).
The Renaissance Mathematicus debunks a few myths about Newton’s appointment as Lucasian Professor.

Education

Mathalicious doesn’t see online learning as something that will bring down traditional classroom-teaching, but as a tool we should embrace to assist us in the classroom and free up time for the less technical (and more inspiring) parts of math-education.
The MIT will start a new online program that is open for everyone, but you have to pay for the examination. Casting out Nines ponders what it could mean for higher education in general, if this is successful.
In response to a “Forbes”-list on which problems will disappear for the youngest generation, Teaching College Math lists some new problems that come with the solutions to the old ones.
Misscalcul8 has a bad day because she doesn’t know how to inspire students by relating math with the real world, because she doesn’t use math in the real world herself. Why is this so much easier in literature or social studies? (She followed up on a hopeful note)

Research

OR by the Beach used Constraint Programming to find a stable marriage of Santa’s Reindeers.
The Geomblog continued reporting on the ICDM, writing about social networks and negative results on Stochastic Kroneker graphsand measures for classifier performance.
Mathbabe asked “Why work?”.
Numbers rule your world reflected on “Derman, Rodrik and the nature of statistical models”.
Disquisitiones Mathematicae starts a series on Szemerédi’s regularity Lemma.
At The n-Category Cafe, Tom Leinster shares some insights on the law of large numbers from Alex Simpson’s talk at the celebrations of Peter Hancock’s 60th birthday.

Community

JD2718 tells the story of Raqnel James, a teacher was falsely accused of aggravated harassment.
Frank Morgan gives detailed advice on writing an REU proposal for support from the NSF.
Images des Mathématiques has a report from the meeting on Mathematics and Art at the Banff International Research Station (translation).