Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Alexander Bogomolny …cutting the knot


No doubt many are familiar with Terry Gross’s “Fresh Air” long-running show on NPR… so long running in fact that whenever someone famous dies, it turns out they are likely to have been interviewed on Fresh Air at some point, and NPR, in tribute, re-runs the episode.

This week my interview with Alexander Bogomolny, done 4+ years ago, abruptly spiked up significantly in weekly traffic, associated with his recent passing.

I’ve always wanted my simple interviews to be ongoing sources of additional information about the math communicators highlighted, but it only just suddenly hit me (not to be too morbid about it) that all these folks will pass on at some point, and the interviews also stand a bit as tributes that readers may draw some reminiscences from. Just a little odd/ironic to realize that these posts may accrue as many or more visits upon the death of an individual as when they were living.
Most of these interviewees will outlive me (at least I’m older than the majority of them), but in some cases at least, I s’pose that like Terry Gross, I may still be around to recall the blog time spent with one or more of these math communicators when they pass. Anyway, be sure to fully appreciate them while they're among us!

I'll end by passing along just one of the countless puzzles that Alexander posted (with 4 solutions as he would often do). It is the same 'lost plane-boarding pass' puzzle that Zoe Griffiths recently employed in the Big Internet Math-Off to win her first round:

https://www.cut-the-knot.org/Probability/LostPass.shtml

[and a few more puzzles ;) can be found HERE]


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