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Moon Duchin’s Favorite Theorem
This post originally appeared at scientificamerican.com.
On this episode of our podcast My Favorite Theorem, Kevin Knudson and I were pleased to have the opportunity to talk with Moon Duchin, a mathematician at Tufts University. You can listen to the episode at kpknudson.com, where there is also a transcript.
Dr. Duchin has appointments not o [...]
The Serendipity of Swiss Cheese
This post first appeared on scientificamerican.com.
Approximation is a recurring theme in mathematics. Sometimes it seems like all of mathematics is saying, “Well, I know how to solve the problem in this domain. Is there a way I can approximate other domains with this domain?” A lot of calculus boils down to approximating arbitrary functions [...]
I Can Has Numberz?
This post first appeared at scientificamerican.com.
My favorite genre of tumblr post is “humans are adorable.” We like to decorate ourselves with shiny things! We burn things for fun even though fire is inherently very scary! We bond with nonhumans and even feel empathy for spaceships and robot vacuum cleaners! We are ridiculous creatures, bu [...]
The Transposed Heads, Thomas Mann
I was skeptical about this book, and that skepticism was not unwarranted. I don’t remember when I picked this book up, but it has the look of something I got from a free table at an old apartment or at a used book sale at the library. I probably picked it up because I’ve wanted to read Thomas Mann (who won the 1929 Nobel Prize in literature; [...]
What I Wrote in April 2019
I’ve started a monthly email newsletter collecting my writing, some of the things I’m reading, and a few other odds and ends. You can subscribe here.
What I wrote
Last month was so busy I forgot to share this article! Applied mathematicians are exploring the possibility of controlling mosquito-borne disease outbreaks by giving the mosquitoes [...]
Why Isn’t 1 a Prime Number?
This post originally appeared on scientificamerican.com.
An engineer friend of mine recently surprised me by saying he wasn’t sure whether the number 1 was prime or not. I was surprised because among mathematicians, 1 is universally regarded as non-prime.
The confusion begins with this definition a person might give of “prime”: a prime number [...]
What I Wrote in March 2019
I’ve started a monthly email newsletter collecting my writing, some of the things I’m reading, and a few other odds and ends. You can subscribe here.
What I wrote
For Symmetry Magazine, I wrote about Entangle, an exhibit of artwork inspired by physics.
I interviewed Jill Pipher, the new president of the American Mathematical Society and thir [...]
What I Wrote in February 2019
I’ve started a monthly email newsletter collecting my writing, some of the things I’m reading, and a few other odds and ends. You can subscribe here.
What I wrote
For Quanta Magazine, I wrote about recent research showing that only countably many non-intersecting Möbius bands can fit into three-dimensional space. If you don’t know what [...]
What I Wrote in January 2019
I’ve started a monthly email newsletter collecting my writing, some of the things I’m reading, and a few other odds and ends. You can subscribe here.
What I wrote
If you missed Thirdsday this year, no worries: you can file this post away for the next time January third is on a Thursday, which, barring major calendrical reforms, will be in 20 [...]
What I Wrote in December 2018
I’ve started a monthly email newsletter collecting my writing, some of the things I’m reading, and a few other odds and ends. You can subscribe here.
What I wrote
On our podcast My Favorite Theorem, my cohost Kevin Knudson and I talked with Anil Venkatesh about how to assign value to everything from votes and vetoes to video game equipment a [...]
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