Mathblogging.org Weekly Picks

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).

Enjoy!

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