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Topology looks for the patterns inside big data
What good is all this data if we can't figure out how to analyze it?Elif Ayiter, CC BY-NC-NDBig data gets much attention from media, industry and government. Companies and labs generate massive amounts...
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John Nash: a beautiful mind and its exquisite mathematics
John Nash, mathematician and Nobel laureate in economics, died in a taxi accident on May 23; he was 86. His wife, Alicia, was with him and also did not survive the crash. The Nashes were on their way...
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Don’t freak if you can’t solve a math problem that’s gone viral
Are you smarter than a third grader in Vietnam?Woman image via www.shutterstock.comIt’s been quite a year for mathematics problems on the internet. In the last few months, three questions have been...
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Can math solve the congressional districting problem?
The original 1812 gerrymander district designed to favor Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry.Elkanah TisdaleLost amidst the frenzy of coverage of the Supreme Court’s rulings about the Affordable Care...
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The Common Core is today’s New Math – which is actually a good thing
Change can be a good thing – really.Homework image via www.shutterstock.com.Math can’t catch a break. These days, people on both ends of the political spectrum are lining up to deride the Common Core...
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The rush to calculus is bad for students and their futures in STEM
The author, teaching at the very front of his calculus class.Kevin Knudson, CC BYTwo years ago I taught a section of Calculus I to approximately 650 undergrad students in a large auditorium. Perhaps...
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A purported new mathematics proof is impenetrable – now what?
Wait, what was that? You lost me.Notations image via www.shutterstock.com.What happens when someone claims to have proved a famous conjecture? Well, it depends. When a paper is submitted, the journal...
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Extreme numbers: the unimaginably large and small pop up in recent experiments
It's a lot of grains of sand, but numbers can get a whole lot bigger....Tony Hisgett, CC BYThe physics world erupted in celebration this month with the confirmed discovery of gravitational waves by the...
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‘The Math Myth’ fuels the algebra wars, but what’s the fight really about?
A confused student might not be leaving a math classroom....Student image via www.shutterstock.com.I discovered recently that my calculus students do not know the meaning of the word “quorum.” Since a...
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What exactly does ‘instantaneous’ mean?
Lightning moves pretty quickly; would you call it instantaneous?Steven Vanderburg, NOAAHow short is an “instant”? Is it a second? A tenth of a second? A microsecond? You might think all of these...
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The Nobel Prize for Physics goes to topology – and mathematicians applaud
Math doesn't get its own Nobel, but is the foundation for much Prize-winning research.Tim Ereneta, CC BY-NCDavid Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz received the 2016 Nobel Prize for...
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