Jo Boaler with Lex Fridman

 Math educator Jo Boaler recently spent 90 minutes with Lex Fridman on his podcast:

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

Jo Boaler with Lex Fridman

 Math educator Jo Boaler recently spent 90 minutes with Lex Fridman on his podcast:

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

Math… Performing vs. Learning

Stanford's Jo Boaler defends Common Core in this recent 20-min. YouTube video:

Learning, Books, Puzzles, P-values

Trying to get my blogging energy back after the 104th Carnival of Math sapped more of it than I expected 8-/
Will just point to a few pieces I enjoyed over the last few days:

1) The always-interesting Jo Boaler writes in The Atlantic about how the controversial Common Core approach to math education could help break down "math stereotypes." She believes the Common Core curriculum can produce students with more math confidence "who can develop mathematical models and predictions, and who can justify, reason, communicate, and problem solve… who are powerful mathematical thinkers and who have not been held back by stereotypical thinking and teaching":

http://tinyurl.com/lnmyv7r
(...of course not everyone in the 250+ comments agrees with her ;-)

2) Yet another wonderful podcast interview with Edward Frenkel (author of "Love and Math") this time from The Guardian:
http://tinyurl.com/kqrp5tw

3) "I just don't get no respect anymore"… THAT's what statistical p-values must be saying to themselves these days... a couple more articles critical of their standard use:

http://tinyurl.com/pcmfo2w (from Ars Technica)
http://tinyurl.com/mm9aceb (from Scientific American)

4) And an interesting little probability puzzle from Presh Talwalkar here:

http://tinyurl.com/lnpveb7

5) Speaking of probability, Paul Nahin fans will be delighted to see that Dr. Nahin has a new book out, "Will You Be Alive 10 Years From Now?" -- frankly, I think it's a crummy title, but nonetheless looks like a fantastic/entertaining read if you enjoy probability puzzles (which is the entire focus of the volume -- I'll likely employ some of the content for blogpost material here eventually).
Don't know when I'll find time to review it though, since my current priority is Noson Yanofsky's "The Outer Limits of Reason" which I regard as the most important popular math-related volume in quite some time.

This and That…

Trouble In Mathland?…

Wow! I debated whether or not to cast attention on this matter, but it is moving around math circles and warrants an open-airing… a serious dispute over math education and harassment between university professors (aired by Jo Boaler of Stanford):

http://www.stanford.edu/~joboaler/
 (I guess math isn't always pretty... )

Keith Devlin wrote a (positive) bit about Boaler back in a 2010 posting (and she has plenty of other backers as well):

http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_06_10.html

Claims of her opponents are voiced in this pdf:

ftp://math.stanford.edu/pub/papers/milgram/combined-evaluations-version3.pdf

(I wouldn't want to get too mired in this dispute, which I suspect may get much worse before it gets better :-(, but will watch for any resolution that might eventually come about).

On to lighter material...

50 interesting facts about pi here:

http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/07/03_pi.html

And in an interesting development, a TEDx talk from "Randy Powell" on so-called "vortex math" was finally yanked down as pure gibberish (how often does this happen?), though still available of course on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzfgq1zv8jg&feature=related

Finally, a little puzzle to end with (...think I grabbed this awhile ago from either Cliff Pickover or Ben Vitale but don't remember for sure!):

Only one 2-digit integer is both a square and a cube (n^2, p^3). What is it? And likewise there is only one 3-digit integer that is both a square and a cube. What is it??
....answer below
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ANSWER:


64 (8^2 and 4^3) and 729 (27^2 and 9^3)


ADDENDUM: a good longer read now available on the Boaler controversy here (with many comments coming in):

http://tinyurl.com/9rrlw2v