Monday Puzzles

 To rev up your brain, Alex Bellos offered forth 3 puzzles today:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/nov/29/can-you-solve-it-yule-devour-these-festive-treats

A "Chess Tug of War"

 For chess fans, a report on the current battle for the chess world championship:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/neither-grandmaster-yields-in-a-chess-tug-of-war/

Weekend ASMR

 For a little weekend relaxation another sampling of Angelo shoeshine ASMR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hputo9BjagU

Theorem vs. Paradox

 In case you're in the mood to twist your mind a bit into knots, there's this:  ;)

https://inference-review.com/letter/a-theorem-and-a-paradox

Cookin' up Tweets

 IF you’re on Twitter and you’re interested in math-related material, then you likely already know of John D. Cook and his terse blog posts, but you might not be aware of ALL his Twitter accounts (I guess there are worse addictions one could have! ;) 

Check them out here:

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/twitter_page/

He’s at 18 accounts thus far; can y’all think of just a couple more to get him to a nice round 20? or, even one more would make 19, nicely prime and Lance Alworth’s old jersey number with the San Diego Chargers! ;))

Tai-Danae Bradley and Sean Carroll Together

 Mathematician Tai-Danae Bradley with Sean Carroll on his Mindscape podcast:

https://art19.com/shows/sean-carrolls-mindscape/episodes/91c7d5c3-5ad1-4720-9256-a677782173ec

Andrew Gelman Spends Another Day at the Sausage Factory

Regression discontinuity, oink, oink:

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2021/11/21/just-another-day-at-the-sausage-factory-its-just-funny-how-regression-discontinuity-analyses-routinely-produce-these-ridiculous-graphs-and-the-authors-and-journals-dont-even-seen-to-notice/ 

"Musings on mathematical creativity"

 Creative mathematical thinking:

https://emergentmath.com/2021/11/20/musings-on-mathematical-creativity/

Favorite Numberphile Videos....

 I haven't looked these all over, but I don't doubt it makes for a nice little selection:

https://beautyofmathematics.com/favorite-video-every-year-numberphile/

Wheel of Illusion

 Well, this is a lovely optical illusion:

https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1460013215593553920

Covid and Bad Math?...

 It's complicated...:

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/11/09/bad-math-covid-treatment-paper-by-pierre-kory-retracted-for-flawed-results/

A Take on Taleb's Take...

 A popular Twitter thread on N. Taleb's Real World Risk Institute's 2-week program:

https://twitter.com/emigal/status/1459647941396910086

Creator of The Art of Problem Solving

 Fascinating portrait of Richard Rusczyk, founder of the Art of Problem Solving (H/T to Mike Lawler):

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/richard-rusczyks-worldwide-math-camp fbclid=IwAR2mYgDGfB2FwsmybDpTdEFx57BnKGB_armIc3poYblvo1iObWfNqpzhkZU

Imaginary Numbers via Veritasium

 Veritasium gives the background of imaginary numbers and their connection to the physics of reality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUzklzVXJwo

Twin Primes and Their Shared Neighbors

 “It’s as if the primes were heaving all their divisors over the fence into the neighbor’s yard”….

Another splendid post from Brian Hayes (this time on prime numbers & “tweens”):

http://bit-player.org/2021/does-having-prime-neighbors-make-you-more-composite

Probably room for a lot more work on this... primes are endlessly fascinating.

Michael Harris on Mathematics by Machine

 Peering at the future of mathematics... and the philosophy underlying it?:

https://siliconreckoner.substack.com/p/can-mathematics-be-done-by-machine

What Goes Up Must..... (house-flipping gone awry)

 Is the housing bubble soon to burst (again)? or only Zillow's algorithmic attempt to reap profits from it?:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-02/zillow-shuts-down-home-flipping-business-after-racking-up-losses

(H/T Mike Lawler)

Like A Horse and Carriage (math & music)

 Personally, I've always believed in a cognitive linkage between math and music, in part because of the number of individuals I've encountered who were either math majors and music minors, or vice-versa, music majors with math minors... and there are other reasons as well. Apparently, though, some folks doubt the connection, which this study now seems to back up:

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-strong-links-music-math.html

A Fun Carnival of Math

 In the midst of these uncertain and sometimes even dismal times luckily the Carnival of Math comes our way once each month. The latest diverse, entertaining offering (#199) here:

https://doubleroot.in/blog/carnival-of-math-199/