In His Prime....

“[Andrew] Granville, who is writing a book on analytic number theory, complained that Maynard has greatly slowed his progress. 'I’ve had to add about 150 extra pages because of him,' Granville said.”

Erica Klarreich with another lovely profile of an outstanding mathematician, in this instance number theorist James Maynard:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/james-maynard-solves-the-hardest-easy-math-problems-20200701/

Friday ASMR

Heading into the weekend just another (auditory) ASMR video (this time of finger-tapping)... because God-only-knows how friggin' crazy and anxiety-ridden the next week will be!:

Shifting Covid-19 Death Rates?

This morning Mike Lawler pointed out this longish Twitter thread from Derek Thompson that helps illustrate the variables/factors/nuances/opinions in covid-19 analysis:

https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1275061694604115968

Sextuple-lateral...

Another whole show (podcast) of 6 clever 'lateral thinking puzzles' from the Rosses at Futility Closet:

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2020/06/22/podcast-episode-300-lateral-thinking-puzzles/

As Sean Connery Might Say, "Orlin, Ben Orlin"

While he works arduously putting just the right smirks onto the faces of his round-faced buddies for his 3rd book of mathematical fun-fare, I figured it might be time for a little retrospective of Ben Orlin, for anyone new to the math world, or who has otherwise somehow missed his meteoric (or perhaps asteroidal) rise to some prominence in the math-o-sphere (pretty sure he’s the most sought-after cartoonist of bad drawings who currently roams the math-landscape). And heck, for all I know, there's even about a 1/365 chance that today is his birthday.

So anyway, here are the main pieces I’ve written on Ben over the last few years, for any who wish to acquaint themselves with him:

2 interviews I’ve done with him:

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2018/08/ben-orlin-author-to-be-with-bad-drawings.html

https://mathtango.blogspot.com/2015/02/ben-orlin-math-bloggings-bill-watterson.html

...a further “profile” I did of Ben last year:

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2019/08/ben-orlin-mathtoonist.html

...and “reviews” of his first 2 mediocre books:

( IF by “mediocre” one means incredibly fun, unique, entertaining, engaging, and instructive volumes):

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2019/10/im-through-praising-ben-orlin.html

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2018/10/good-math-bad-drawings-great-book.html

The Debates Continue... (covid-19)

Mike Lawler and others have pointed to a “debate” over the opposing views of John Ioannidis and Nassim Taleb on covid-19 presented here:

https://forecasters.org/blog/2020/06/14/covid-19-ioannidis-vs-taleb/

...as a sidenote here's a recent summary piece (not statistical) on covid I found of interest:

https://www.bluezones.com/2020/06/covid-19-straight-answers-from-top-epidemiologist-who-predicted-the-pandemic/

(...sure looks to me like many locales will be returning to Phase 1 before they make it to Phase 3!)

Life-changing Ideas....

David Perell's "50 Ideas That Changed My Life" (some of these changed my life as well):

https://www.perell.com/blog/50-ideas-that-changed-my-life

Amidst all the Covid, Chaos, and Crisis, Time for a Little Carnival

A new "Carnival of Mathematics" is out (actually the 182nd, believe it or not!):

https://zoelgriffiths.co.uk/index.php/2020/06/04/carnival-of-mathematics/

Meanwhile, on a more philosophical, but also timely, note R.J. Lipton is talking about "truth":

https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2020/06/04/the-truth/

ASMR Tuesday

Just realized I never posted an ASMR video for the month of May, so may as well throw one in now:

And What Have You've Been Doing During Lockdown?

Some folks, it would appear, may have a wee bit too much free time on their hands...:

'Arbitrary thresholding' and Statistical Practice

Black-and-white thinking and p-values... a recent post (and comments) from Andrew Gelman's blog:

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/24/banishing-black-white-thinking-a-trio-of-teaching-tricks/

Sudoku Frenzy

OK, for all ye Sudoku buffs out there, 2 incredible Sudoku puzzles passed along by Ben Orlin on Twitter (no, really, incredible puzzles):

Siobhan Roberts Returns With More...

You probably think you've read enough about him by now, but yet another fantastic Siobhan Roberts' piece on John Conway in today's NY Times (ought not be missed):

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/science/john-conway-math.html

ADDENDUM:  ...and a day later, Jim Propp adds his own personal memories/experience to the mix:
https://mathenchant.wordpress.com/2020/05/16/confessions-of-a-conway-groupie/

Peeping Through a Keyhole

"Peeping through my keyhole I see within the range of only about thirty percent of the light that comes from the sun; the rest is infrared and some little ultraviolet, perfectly apparent to many animals, but invisible to me. A nightmare network of ganglia, charged and firing without my knowledge, cuts and splices what I do see, editing it for my brain. Donald E. Carr points out that the sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain. 'This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is.'"

                                             -- Annie Dillard ("Pilgrim At Tinker Creek")