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# Posts

### May 22, 2015

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In which we meet Cayley’s Theorem and reach the end of this particular adventure, but catch a glimpse of far-off lands still to be explored. Theorem 68: Let be a group, let be a set. Given a left action of on , there is an associated homomorphism . Given a homomorphism , there is an associated […]
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“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”― Søren Kierkegaard++++Lots of students have observed that they didn't really understand a subject until they_____algebra calculus++++++++++++++We need A to prove B but we need B to understand the why of A.+++++++++++++On the first pass, jettison all of the inessentials from A
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If you read the books or watched the movies, you get the sense that Frodo and Sam walked pretty far to toss that ring in the fire. Imgur user mattsawizard…Tags: humor, Lord of the Rings
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Let be a graph. The Ramsey number is the smallest such that whenever you color the edges of the complete graph with vertices with two colors blue and red, you can either find a blue copy or a red copy of . Ramsey’s famous theorem asserts that if is a complete graph on vertices then […]
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John D. Barrow If you are a flower then April is allegedly the cruellest month, but if you are a student of any sort then I'm sure you would have picked June. If you are a flower then April is allegedly the cruellest month, but if you are a student of any sort then I'm sure you would have picked June. June is a month of […]
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If you put out an open call through email to complete a task for nothing in return, it might make sense not to expect much. I tried to make it as simple as possible to gather some reaction time data … Continue reading →
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Imagine that you are a very new MATLAB programmer and you have to create an N x N matrix called A where A(i,j) = i+j Your first attempt at a solution might look like this N=2000 % Generate a N-by-N matrix where A(i,j) = i + j; for ii = 1:N for jj = 1:N [...]
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For my MA course on Wittgenstein earlier this year, students had to write a short essay, blog post-style, on the Tractatus. One of them, Joseph Wilcox, took up the challenge of asking what exactly it means to say that Wittgenstein's project in the Tractatus is essentially a Kantian project --...
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5/22/2015"This statement is false."David
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5/22/2015Mathematicians born on this day:1848 : Hermann Schubert1865 : Alfred Dixo […]
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Data art is on the rise. Jacoba Urist for the Atlantic gets into the beginnings and its current prevalence. Art is a constant march of expansion, according to Harvey Molotch,…Tags: Atlantic, rise
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Calculer la forme de la Terre, aux temps héroïques. - L'IHP, maison d'histoires / Piste rouge, featured
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(Click on the comic if you can't see the full image.) (C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.My other choice: Every Kirk has his Gorn . . . The more I think about it, I might've gotten enough sci-fi references to fill that in, had I tried, had I tried ... Damn it, Jim! Meanwhile, 80s Week continues. Come back often for more funny math and geeky comics.
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Some Long Distance Blogging with about a million page views per year. Here are the historical figures: May 21, 2015, 4 million page viewsDecember 2, 2014, 3.5 million page viewsJune 7, 2014 3 million page viewsNovember 07, 2013, 2.5 million page viewsMay 27, 2013 2 million page views October 25, 2012, 1.5 million page viewsa page view is not the same as a unique visit, here is that figure:  which amoints to 650 unique visits per day on average.Here as some interesting tags […]
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I've had a really busy year. I've always said at the start of the school year that I'm going to say 'no' more frequently in as politely a way as possible. I've said I'd be more honest about priorities. Instead … Continue reading →
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Pour la deuxième année, chaque semaine, un défi du calendrier mathématique... - Défis du Calendrier Mathématique
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I spent the last two days in class reflecting on mathematics with my students. Here’ the context: This week is state testing week. I only taught class two days, between testing days and field day Friday. I didn’t want to stress kids out while they were taking tests, but also wanted to be purposeful with […]
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a-search-for-beauty: Torus Knot
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Recently, I have been reviewing a new “CCSS-Aligned” middle school curriculum and find myself completely frustrated with the overabundance of scaffolding and lack of student thinking required on every assignment. Not having the days/weeks it would take for teachers to engage in the mathematics as both learners and teachers, I needed a short, powerful way […]

### May 21, 2015

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I taught Discrete Math Honors this semester. Two of the days were cancelled entirely because of snow (the entire school was closed) and four more I couldn't make because of health issues (I'm fine now). People DID sub for me those two and DID do what I would have done. I covered some crypto which I had not done in the past. Because of all of this I ended up not covering the proof that the primes were infinite until the last week. INTENTIONAL EXPERIMENT: Rather than phrase it as a proof by […]
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Cosa è Schooltoon? Ve ne accennai l'anno scorso nel post "Le proporzioni...E Lo Scherzo A Ferrari", ma ho deciso di dedicare un post specifico a questo progetto interessante, che nel frattempo è cresciuto.Riporto di seguito la presentazione che ne fa il sito dedicato al progetto:"Schooltoon è una ‘scuola a cartoon’, nella quale il Prof. Eddie, Moretti, Giovanna e tanti altri personaggi rivoluzionano il modo di insegnare ed imparare, attraversando a suon di rock i […]
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The Le Petit Journal cover, on 1912 April 21, shows eclipse watchers in 1912 along with the solar eclipse of May 22, 1724, the previous total solar eclipse visible from Paris, France“Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads:ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals - the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists […]
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This time of year, the standards used to measure the success of a lesson may look different than they do at other times of the year.  For example, some teachers might consider “Students not using worksheets to have paper airplane throwing contest” to consistute a lesson well executed.  To a certain extent, I am joking, […]
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This is a solution to problem D from the International Collegiate Programming Contest. The list of the problems can be found here. This is one of the problems which was really appealing for me, from the start. The idea is the following: suppose you have a Swiss cheese cube of (the units are centimeters). This […]
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Non è affatto uno scherzo. I "Supereroi" della matematica arrivano davvero (anzi sono già in vostra attesa) su Oilproject, la community online su cui potete trovare lezioni riguardanti le materie più disparate. Ogni corso è una raccolta di video, testi ed esercizi.Matematica, storia, letteratura, chimica e biologia, filosofia, fisica e scienze della Terra: su Oilproject c’è tutto ciò che vi occorre per avere un aiuto nello studio. Testi e videolezioni riassumono le idee principali […]
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(Continues part 1, part 2, and part 3; fork the full text on GitHub) Branches Programmers are fond of using “branches” in their code. A code branch is a version of the entire project that shares it change history, but includes some changes the main branch (usually called “master”) does not (yet) contain. This is…
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When early registering for Seattle (JSM 2015) today, I discovered on the ASA webpage the very sad news that Bruce Lindsay had passed away on May 5.  While Bruce was not a very close friend, we had met and interacted enough times for me to feel quite strongly about his most untimely death. Bruce was […]
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via VisualizingMath
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Aaron Schiff has collected visualisations of the overall NZ 2015 budget A useful one that no-one’s done yet would be something showing how the \$25 benefit increase works out with other benefits being considered as income — either in terms of the distribution of net benefit increases or in terms of effective marginal tax rate.
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I want your help. I've been thinking lately about facilitating adult learning (because, let's be honest, when am I ever not?) and how to communicate/share/model/instill particular mindsets or orientations around the learning and teaching of mathematics that are different from participants' default setting. Specifically, how do you address breaches of the culture you're aspiring to create? So, I'm making my practice public-- an instance where I wish I'd responded differently-- and hoping to hear […]