Good Wednesday Schtuff...

1) In the news... the winner of this year's Abel Prize (here & here) in mathematics (considered by many, as the math Nobel) is Pierre Deligne,  algebraic geometrician. The news announced at Tim Gowers' blog among many places:

http://gowers.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/pierre-deligne-wins-the-2013-abel-prize/

2) The Simons Foundation has an ongoing list of brief video interviews with various accomplished international mathematicians below (looks quite interesting):

https://simonsfoundation.org/category/features/science-lives/alphabetical-listing/

3) I'm about halfway through Lance Fortnow's new volume "The Golden Ticket," all about the P vs. NP Millennium Problem. It's a fantastic read on a topic that is not easy to write about for a mass audience. Even at just the halfway point I feel very comfortable recommending it, especially if you're interested in the Clay Millennium Problems, specifically P vs. NP, or computer science theory more generally.
"CTK Insights" already has a great review of it up, saying several of the things I had jotted down to mention (I may still write some sort of review later… or may just skip it, since CTK has covered it so well). His review starts off saying, "...when the book by Lance Fortnow arrived the day before yesterday, I opened it for cursory inspection, just to get a first impression. Yesterday I finished reading it"… that gives you some idea how good it is!!:

http://www.mathteacherctk.com/blog/2013/03/the-golden-ticket-p-np-and-the-search-for-the-impossible/

4) Finally, Keith Devlin's latest update on his current Coursera MOOC course ("Introduction to Mathematical Thinking") is here:

http://mooctalk.org/2013/03/20/overcoming-the-legacy-of-prior-education/

Once again, a fabulous, if long, read. The early part of the post is largely a bit re-hash of things Keith has expressed before, but then he gets into a ranty section about the education system that really offers a lot of food-for-thought (and probably debate). ...Recommended reading for all educators especially, but for students, parents, and observers as well.