Let The Shopping Begin

 Usually toward the end of the year I do some sort of review of popular math books from the year gone by, including choosing a “Book of the Year.”  That tradition ends this year as I have read no math books (and very few books at all) since last March, having been so distracted by covid and the insane politics of America… moreover that rascal Ben Orlin didn’t put out a book this year, so what is the point of naming a book-of-the-year!  Just kidding, there were once again many fabulous books out in 2020 for the dedicated math fan. The four I did look at, and absolutely loved (and recommend), early in the year were, in no special order:

Mathematics for Human Flourishing

Humble Pi

Sleight of Mind

Do Dice Play God

Five more recent volumes that have definitely caught my eye are:

  Paradoxes

  Cut the Knot

  Best Writing On Mathematics 2020

  Games For Your Mind

  Why Study Mathematics

…. but many other math volumes appeared in the course of this year and if math books are part of your holiday shopping list you ought have no trouble finding several to select from. Indeed, this almost seems like a Renaissance period of math exposition, with the problem being over-choice, not scarcity!

ADDENDUM:  will go ahead and add this volume I just learned of today:

Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers

Friday ASMR

 I shouldn't let November get by without an ASMR post, so without further adieu...:

Benford & Biden, etc.....

ICYMI, in a timely video, Matt Parker has taken on Benford's Law as it relates to elections:

One Word For Today....

 Just sayin'....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcOQSk_cMO0

Continuum Hypothesis via Scott Aaronson

 

Bored with the headlines, folks?... Is election news getting you down?... Or the blitz of political ads scraping on your last nerve?... Is that what's buggin' you, kiddies??? 

Well, OK, this won’t be everyone’s cup-a-tea, or fun distraction, but in a longish post (first of multiple) Scott Aaronson tackles the independence of the Continuum Hypothesis:

https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4974

I knew it would be a great read when he started off with this quote from Bertrand Russell:

 ;)

“in adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics.”

Sharing the Wealth....

We live in an age when the need for critical/logical thinking has never been more vital… and yet (it seems to me) is hardly taught or emphasized in our education system. Perhaps no field of study more greatly nourishes such an ability or objective than mathematics.  In that vein I recently asked on Twitter what organizations and non-profits math people themselves would encourage giving charitable donations to in order to help further foster mathematics and the skills it entails. 

Below are the suggestions, in no particular order, that I received (some of which I was unaware of), and I’m still happy to hear of even more, so feel free to add in comments:

Gathering For Gardner Organization

Julia Robinson Math Foundation

Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM)

Edge For Women

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

TODOS

National Association of Mathematicians

American Institute of Mathematics

'Math circles,' active in many areas of the country (check your local area), were cited.

additionally, someone mentioned that there are likely several math-related Patreon accounts taking donations… some are HERE.

Lastly, I was a bit surprised that no one mentioned the Art of Problem Solving group, so I’ll throw it into the mix  as well.

As we head into the year-end charitable-giving season maybe keep such groups in mind right alongside all the more traditional names you'll hear from in your mailbox or otherwise.

From Pencil & Paper to Zoom... Teaching and the Age of Covid

 

"There’s a minimalism to teaching and learning math that I’ve always loved. With just a pencil and paper I can become a mathematician. With just one good question I can launch a math class. But now there’s a lot more I have to rely on, and plan for. And it’s all beyond my control."

  -- Patrick Honner

https://mrhonner.com/archives/20512

Apex Fallacy

 This post from Andrew Gelman (well, the comments) led me to learn about the “apex fallacy” today:

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/09/26/does-this-fallacy-have-a-name/

…which led me in turn to read about the “spotlight fallacy” and “toupee fallacy”:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Spotlight_fallacy

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Toupee_fallacy

Covid at Cornell

 Covid... the Cornell experience:

https://junkcharts.typepad.com/numbersruleyourworld/2020/09/good-news-from-cornell.html

Early success, but Kaiser Fung does caution at the end:

"Whether the success will last is an open question. It's only three weeks into the term."

Thur. ASMR

A little hairstyling ASMR:

Data Mining Explained...

 Nice exposition on today's world of data mining (...and bitcoin):

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/09/computers-excel-at-finding-temporary-patterns/

"Dear p-values...."

 Taking the p-values pledge:

https://medianwatch.netlify.app/post/pvalue_pledge/

"Based on this latest experience and my exhaustion with dealing with p-values, I am making a pledge:

There will be no p-values in any paper that I co-author in the next 12 months."  -- Adrian Barnett

Sir Roger...

From ASMR (prior post) to an hour+ of Roger Penrose, courtesy of Numberphile:




More on the podcast and Penrose here, from AMS:
https://blogs.ams.org/beyondreviews/2020/08/29/roger-penrose-on-numberphile/

Birdie ASMR

Approaching the end of another hell-of-a-month with another ASMR....
Who knew that cockatoos were dogs!:

Loopy….

Okay, Mikhail Shubin replies to an Andrew Gelman post with this comment:

******************

“Should you reply all to stop the annoying reply-to-all cycles? I think this is a case on an interesting moral dilemma!

You want to protest against something, but the only way to express your protest is to participate in the thing you want to protest against! The other examples:

* Should you fly to the conference on preventing the climate change?

* There is too many meeting in the company. Should you call a meeting to discuss this situation?

* Should you protest violently against violence?

* You believe the elections, organised in your county, are illegitimate. Should you still participate in the elections?

* You suspect you have COVID. Should you take a public transport across the city to get tested?”

******************

And to see what he’s responding to you can check out the post here:

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/08/26/hilarious-reply-all-loop/

The Slippery Fish of Social Science...

“…when we’re doing social and behavioral science, we’re not looking for a needle in a haystack; rather, we’re trying to catch a slippery fish that keeps moving.  All this is even harder in political science, economics, or sociology. An essential aspect of social science is that it understands people not in isolation but within groups. Thus, if psychology ultimately requires a different model for each person (or a model that accounts for differences between people), the social sciences require a different model for each configuration of people (or a model that accounts for dependence of outcomes on the configuration).”

I enjoyed this statistical (or almost meta-statistical) piece from Andrew Gelman yesterday on  social/behavioral science research, where the same concerns seem to re-occur again and again over time:

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/08/16/lee-cronbach-1975-beyond-the-two-disciplines-of-scientific-psychology/

Feeling Like a Pawn...

" I was terrified. It’s really scary to speak up in a room like that, and to call out literally everyone I work with. And I regret that I took half an hour to say something. I still can’t understand why no one else spoke up.... The message in that meeting was crystal clear. My school’s commitment to health and safety is a lie."

One teacher's experience as schools around the country attempt to open:

https://fivetwelvethirteen.wordpress.com/2020/08/15/opening-school-lies-and-fear/

Difficult to see how this ends well... and how this wasn't all foreseen ahead-of-time by bureaucrats in charge.

This Looks Interesting… (Keith Conrad)

I’d not heard of Keith Conrad (University of Connecticut mathematics professor)… until today that is, when R. J. Lipton referenced him:

https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2020/08/13/thanks-to-an-explainer/

Here’s Conrad’s homepage with what looks like lots of fun, interesting, miscellaneous stuff:

https://kconrad.math.uconn.edu

Fooling the Eyes

       

For awhile now I’ve used the above wonderful static optical illusion (of non-existent black dots appearing-and disappearing at grid intersections) as a header for my Twitter account, always presuming it was an example of the “Hermann grid illusion,” but I just recently discovered it is actually a slight variation known as the “scintillating grid illusion.” You can read a tad more about it here:

https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Grid_illusion

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Grid_illusion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_illusion

Friday ASMR

Will end the week with another auditory ASMR offering: