Weekly Picks

Well, Wednesday was well wunder way, what’s waiting was Weekly Picks.

If you were looking for some research related blogging, Terry Tao sets another example of scientific transparency writing about errors in a recent preprint. But maybe you’ll also enjoy Low Dimensional Topology nominating smooth 3-manifold triangulations as the most criminally overused theorem? Maurizio Cogogno might have nominated the Sieve of Eratosthenes (translation). What’s your nomination?

Conference Blogging was big this week. Xi’ans ‘Og and The Statistics Forum were at the JSM2011 in Miami (and blogging heavily about it) while Nuit Blanche and Godels Lost Letter and P=NP kept you updated on the Coding, Complexity and Sparsity Workshop in Ann Arbor. If you were ever annoyed that your conference talk was not recorded and shared, Explaining Mathematics reminded you that you could just record the talk yourself.

More general impressions from the research community could also be found. Tanya Khovanova’s Math Blog shared some experiences of polite gender bias, a post which the Secret Blogging Seminar reflected upon afterwards. The Accidental Mathematician made a case for collaborations. Gaussianos reported from the IMO (translation).

Going over to the teachers and educators, Math Mama writes… wrote about the center of her classroom as part of the Virtual Conference on Core Values while blanchetblog wrote about the virtual RSCON3. Also dy/dan offered full disclosure and Matem@ticaMente explored teaching stereometry (translation).

Lots of other good stuff was around. Dropsea celebrated Niels Abels Birthday (translation), Gaussianos shared two beautiful proofs of the irrationality of (translation). On the visual side, Richard Wiseman’s Blog had to stand corrected while cutting donuts and Dan’s Geometrical Curiosities shared some impossible 3D-printing.

Finally, a shout out: Samuel Hansen’s Kickstarter Project Relatively Prime was successfully funded — thanks to everyone who helped out!

Enjoy!