I haven't even had time to listen to this yet (sometime this weekend though), but Ben Orlin recommends it (ohh, and he happens to be on it), and that's good enough for me:
https://infinitelyirrational.podbean.com/e/the-strange-case-of-sir-newton-and-mr-leibniz/
Those prime-number cicadas are on their way!:
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/27/991168811/here-come-the-cicadas
Another post, like the previous one, linking mathematics and art (in this instance music), this time courtesy of the Simons Foundation:
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2021/04/27/finding-beauty-at-the-piano-and-elegance-in-mathematics/
Quirky little piece from Scientific American on mathematics and chalkboards (as art):
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-art-of-mathematics-in-chalk/
"Even when it is inscrutable, math is beautiful....
As Wynne began to travel to different universities to meet more mathematicians, she discovered how diverse their chalkboard styles are. 'Some were very clean and neat and very carefully considered,' she recalls. 'And some were just this explosion and chaos. The chalkboards almost felt like portraits of the person and depended on the personality of the mathematician'.”
This is above my pay grade ;) but some of you may likely find this Gil Kalai piece stimulating:
Deservedly, Scott Aaronson wins a prize... and, asks for charitable suggestions:
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5448
You are hopefully familiar with knight/knave logic problems (made famous by Raymond Smullyan) — knights are truthtellers who always tell the truth, while knaves always lie. The following is a nice, interesting one (in which Leon & Larry are liars, and Tim a truthteller), originally from Smullyan, but quoted in Jason Rosenhouse’s current volume “Games For Your Mind”:
“You meet triplets named Leon, Larry, and Tim. They are visibly indistinguishable, but Leon and Larry are knaves, while Tim is a knight… What one question could you direct to one of the brothers to determine whether or not he is Larry?”
answer below:
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ANSWER:
Suppose you simply randomly ask one of the brothers, “Are you Larry?” This does no good. Both Tim and Larry will say “no,” and Leon will say “yes.” A yes answer would identify Leon, but a no answer could come from either Tim or Larry, and fails to ID which is which.
If instead we ask, “Are you Tim?” then everyone will simply respond “yes” and we gain nothing.
The intriguing part is that if we ask, “Are you Leon?” the responder will give away whether he is or is not Larry. Larry will lie and answer “yes.” Tim will tell the truth and say “no,” and Leon will lie, also saying “no.” We know anyone answering “no” is not Larry, and anyone replying “yes” must be Larry.
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Interesting Twitter thread (h/t to Keith Devlin for pointing to it) on "decreasing" and "increasing" numbers:
https://twitter.com/Laurie_Rubel/status/1379024067123154945
Apologies for being a few days late in posting this (H/T to Colm Mulcahy for pointing to it):
If you find this video too difficult to wrap your brain around you may want to wait and bone up a bit by first reading a basic topology text, or perhaps alternatively, Jordan Ellenberg's latest upcoming volume "Shape."
Interesting probability thread from David Butler this morning on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/DavidKButlerUoA/status/1377704121424224258
