Michael Pershan’s Problem Problems
I have enjoyed math teacher Michael Pershan’s work for a long time. I follow him on Twitter, and I wrote about his website Math Mistakes a few years ago because, darn it, mistakes are interesting! A...
View ArticleThe arXiv, Curated
The arXiv: a mathematician’s favorite preprint server and semiproductive procrastination enabler. Don’t get a morning newspaper? You can enjoy your breakfast over the arXiv submissions for your...
View ArticleUn-Junking your Charts
Junk Charts is a blog by Kaiser Fung, who describes himself as “the Web’s first data visualization critic.” People have been criticizing and prescribing solutions for misleading data visualization for...
View ArticleMath Education Researchers Deserve Respect
In what has become sadly routine, right-wing news sites started publishing inflammatory articles about a professor whose work they don’t like about two weeks ago. (I am not linking to their stories in...
View ArticleApplication Advice for Students, Job-Seekers, and Recommendation Letter Writers
I really didn’t know what I was doing when I applied for graduate school, and I am thankful for the assistance of the professors at my undergraduate university who helped me and the luck that got me...
View ArticleUnsolved Problems in Math Class
A few years ago, I directed a high school summer math program. Half the day was devoted to exploring the delights of modular arithmetic—we ended the summer with a cake decorated with Fermat’s Little...
View ArticleNews in Numbers and Nurturing Numeracy
My attention span is a little short right now. There’s always the news, of course, but the lack of daylight around the end of the year gives me a weird combination of restlessness and lethargy. That’s...
View ArticleCrunching the Numbers on Energy Efficiency
This fall and winter, I’ve been making some improvements around the house. I’ve gotten some new furniture, added several new houseplants, and added a handrail to the uneven front steps. The big project...
View ArticleMath with Martin
Most teachers and students in the U.S. didn’t have math class today because of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday. But when you get back to the classroom, the online math world has some...
View ArticleHow to Have an Excellent E Day
Tomorrow, February 7, is e Day! This year is the best year to celebrate the base of the natural logarithm because, like Pi Day 2015, the year lines up along with the month and day. Hurrah! People who...
View ArticleGold Medal Math
For the past week and a half or so, my computer browser has been finding its way to NBC’s Olympics coverage while I’m supposed to be doing other things. I might have a different answer the next time I...
View ArticleBlind Review Review
Theoretical computer scientists have been talking about double blind peer review, and it’s an interesting discussion. The current incarnation of this discussion started when Rasmus Pagh and Suresh...
View ArticleGenius Revisited
Three years ago, I wrote two posts (post 1, post 2) about math, the media, and the genius myth, the idea that in order to be successful in math, you have to be born with some particular talent. They’re...
View ArticleMath by the Book
Many mathematicians are familiar with Paul Erdős’s idea of a proof from The Book. The Book was God’s collection of the most beautiful, elegant, and deep proofs. (Never mind the fact that Erdős was an...
View ArticleSo Long, and Thanks for All the Blogs
(You don’t know how long I spent trying to find a word related to math blogging that rhymes with fish.) April 22, 2013, we launched the AMS Blog on Math Blogs with a calendrically appropriate post...
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