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Reviews, Exposition, etc.

• At Azimuth, John Baez wants you to fall in love with the Coxeter group of the cube.
• Learn&Teach Statistics and Operations Research explains statistical significance with a short post and video.

Community

Research

• Regularize can stop being bothered by three problems in complexity — RIP & NSP are NP-hard and homotopy for l1 has exponential growth.
• Nathaniel Johnston shares some notes on norms and dual norms in finite dimensional Hilbert spaces.

Enjoy!

Exposition

• At M-Phi, Catarina Dutilh Novaes discusses a Kantian relic — “logic as umpire”.
• Math Munch has a great week with fractals, kitting and 3-d design.

• At Images des mathématiques (translation), Aurélien Alvarez reports from the French national conference on primary and secondary math education.

Enjoy!

Research

• At Aleph Zero Categorical, Jason Polak gives Kaplansky’s proof that every projective module over a local ring is free.
• At My Biased Coin, guest blogger Justin Thaler explains a recent paper he co-authored on attribute-efficient learning.
• At Combinatorics and more, Gil Kalai lets you catch up before the debate on Quantum Fault-Tolerance Debate continues.

Enjoy!

Popular mathematics

• At The Aperiodical, Katie Steckles and Christian Perfect grow their own delicious self-reproducing foods.
• On youtube, Art of the Problem explains perfect secrecy and pseudo-randomness.

Enjoy!

Research, methodology, etc.

• Think, Thank, Thunk has some fantastic notes&quotes about competency based education.
• Doing Mathematics is trying to sort out constructivist vs discovery-based learning.
• At Maximing Learning,  Amber Caldwell explains how standards based grading helps her with high stakes testing at  the end of the year.
• Max Ray shares two comparative lesson designs, one for discovery and one for rehearsing.

• Mathematics for Teaching shares a Geogebra applet to explore the house of quadrilaterals.
• Math Mama writes… did a unit on Eigen-stuff.
• Math Hombre takes a multiplication game from MathForLove and turns it into a game design unit.
• Pat’s Blog extracts some observations on Pythagorean triples from a 1923 paper.

• Mr Honner shares a beautiful math photo.
• la covacha mathematica (translation) gives you the classsic: how many mathematicians do you need to change a lightbulb?
• Epsilon-Delta overheard it in mathlab.

Research

• At the Geomblog, Suresh Venkatasubramanian explains new ways to minimize communication for distributed computations.
• At OR in an OB world, Paul Rubin explains how to find K best solutions to an optimization.

• Math Encounters Blog deconstructs the dispersion formula for optical fiber.
• At Nuit Blanche, Igor Carron lets the invisible Mercedes disappear and detect its appearance.

Enjoy!

Exposition

• Girls’ Angle Blog answers a reader’s question on the ubiquitous Obviousness.
• The Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science gives you a primer on computational thinking for kids.
• Images des Mathématiques (translation) offers an introduction to biological networks.

• The Renaissance Mathematicus reacts to a revisionist historian at the Scientific American Guest Blog.

Enjoy!

Exposition

• Calculus VII explains the intrinsic diameter.
• Mathematik, Bücher und Meer (translation) studied the complicated way of calculating the date of Easter.
• Transitive Action muses on transparency in mathematics using a simple lemma.
• Gli Studenti Oggi (translation) teaches students about incredible size.

• At Azimuth, John Baez links to his robot-supported talk on environmental issues at Google.
• Out of the Norm explains Gowers’ hyperplane space using Jenga.
• Quomodocumque reflects on probalitities of probabilities.
• Gödel’s Lost Letter and P=NP wonders if protein folding couldn’t be solved with inspiration from lazy evaluation.

Enjoy!

Art

• Vi Hart gives you 9.999… reasons that .999… = 1 only to to show later that every proof is wrong (or does she ).
• Intersections — Poetry with Mathematics shares a poem celebrating Emmy Noether’s 130th birthday.
• Impossible World shares “Constructing the impossible” by Studio Tipi.

• The Math Kid visualizes the duality between the ℓ1 and ℓ∞ norms.
• IntoTheContinuum shares a colorful infinite spiral (including its mathematica code)

Enjoy!

Research, methodology, etc.

• Mathy McMatherson thinks about the Jigsaw teaching technique.
• At dy/dan, Dan Meyer presents his latest project, 101qs.com (also check out his behind-the-scenes).

• Delta Scape writes about effective demonstration lessons.
• Lost in Recursion connected exponents, fractals and the scale of the universe.
• Math4Love shares a lesson on moving bishops on the torus.
• Math2.0 reported on the Noon Day Project.

Enjoy!

Research

• At Xi’an’s Og, Christian Robert reviews a preprint on resampling and GPU parallelism and shares some thoughts after a referee report for one of his own papers comes in.
• The authors of Math Drudge published a new collection of experimental math papers.
• Hydrobates, writes about the Einstein-Boltzmann system and a recent paper by Ho Lee and himself.
• Science in the Sands introduces his new preprint with Aron J. Ahmadia on Runge-Kutta stability regions.

• At God Plays Dice, Michael Lugo reviews Taking Sudoku Seriously.
• 0xDE has filled in a lot of red ink on Wikipedia’s List of people with Erdős numbers.
• Physics Tutorial adds another post on Laplace’s equation.
• At Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference and Social Studies, Andrew Gelman compares economics exceptionalism to Freudian psychology in the 1950s.

Enjoy!

• Bloghetto (translation) continues a series on Pythagoras with his most important discovery.
• cp’s mathem-o-blog made a small video explaining zero knowledge protocols for proving you can solve sudokus.
• Mr. Palomar (translation) explains the other bridges of Euler.

Education

• Random Walks rants about rationalizing denominators.
• Math Hombre shares student teacher work on calculators in classrooms and required blogging.
• Musing Mathematically challenged students with a questionless scavenger hunt.

Research

• At Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference and Social Science, Andrew Gelman discusses the difficulty of letting the data speak.
• Stephen Wolfram shares his personal analytics.

• Intersections shares “A Large Number” by Wislawa Szymborska.
• The Renaissance Mathematicus reflects on being rightfully wrong and wrongfully wrong.
• Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks shares 5 favorite math games.

Education

• Emergent Math shares seven sneaky activities to get students to talk mathematically.
• Delta Scape wonders about confusing students’ conformity with their engagement.

•  Tito Eliatron Dixit (translation) indulges in transcendental meditation on e and π. 
• Calculus VII explains how to generate any pattern in a fraction’s decimal expansion (like the recently hyped 1/998001).
• Intersections shares a poem by Wislawa Szymborska.

Education

• Division by Zero shares some student assignments on parametric curves.

Education

• Popinga  (translation) offers and introduction into graphs in art, with a surprise application.
• Math+Tech=Fun argues that learning is not automatically fun if it is presented in the form of a game; it needs to incorporate the sensation of purpose, mastery, and choices.
• Angrymath explains the dangers of not using enough words in exercises, and instead relying on the assumption that things are obvious from context
• Quod Erat Demonstrandum computes the speed of light, using a mirror on the moon!

Enjoy!

• Casting out Nines wants to make students own, not rent education.
• Better Explained shows how logarithms offer the right perspective  in the real world.
• Angles of Reflection has a positive take on grading, for a change.
• Exzuberant calls for more cultural and historic context in mathematics education.

Research

• Nuit Blanche explains the calibration issue in compressive sensing.
• Regularize gives an introduction to a mathematical model of consensus.
• And so on… revisits Frank Quinn’s article and the grand old question what mathematics is.

Community

• Mathalicious re-examines Khan Academy after a year of media buzz — this time, it’s different.
• mathbabe makes a great point: let them game the model.
• David Bressoud examines trends in race/ethnicity and gender represenation in mathematics.

Enjoy!

• Francis’s Science News (translated) explains the dance of viscous liquid on conveyor belts.
• komplexify muses on THE QUESTION.
• Scienza e Musica (translated) celebrates Giacomo Leopardi.

Education

• f(t) function of time shares a game designed for the learning of basic logic.
• Mathy McMatherson reflects on the effect of not assigning homework.

Research

• Math Drudge examines if probability refutes evolution (spoiler: no).
• Popinga (translated) examines a recent arXiv paper on the history of the Four Color Theorem.
• exzuberant looks back on a full year of Standards Based Grading.

Community

• Mathematics&Statistics at Williams College celebrates Susan Loepp.
• At Computational Complexity, Martin Fürer remembers Ernst Specker.
• At Images des Mathématiques (translated) , Lawrence Meerssemann remembers Marco Brunella.
• mathematik, bücher & meer (translated) offers a nice collection of links in the honor of Hilbert’s 150th birthday.
• At Azimuth, John Baez follows up on Tim Gowers’s Elsevier boycott (for more cf. the Polymath Wiki).

Shorts

Enjoy!

Art, Essays etc.

• Rhapsody in Numbers creates a fractal for the Collatz 3n+1 problem (which was picked up by Gaussianos, translation).
• Mr. Palomar explains cellular automata’s chess of life (translation).
• Out of the Norm gets from boarding planes to pigeon holes.
• Intersections shares Maurice Kendall’s poem Hiawatha Designs an Experiment.
• travels in a mathematical world improves Ian Stewarts’ The Guardian list of popular mathematics books by crowdsourcing.
• matheminutes brings chaos to your calculator — with bifurcation and all.
• Second Rate Minds is annoyed by hot light bulbs and other puzzles.

Education

• Angles of Reflection takes on the big one: grades.
• Piece of Mind introduces Small Number and the efforts to communicate mathematics better to First Nation students.
• Diary of a maths teacher discusses why society needs to change how it views math and why we should dare to bring (true) math into the classroom
• Republic of Math shares nice example for (true) mathematics that can be done in the classroom.
• dy/dan shares a transcript of a panel discussion with Keith Devlin, Karim Ani and Dan Meyer himself.
• Musing Mathematically coins the term “atomic skills”, important for understanding, but are uninteresting on their own
• Il piccolo Friedrich shares a personal story of becoming a teacher and a great example of how to present difficult material in the classroom (translation).

Research

• The preprint on the minimal number of hints necessary for a sudoku has been picked up Maurizio Codogno (translation) and the mathematical approach is sketched out at Rhapsody in Numbers.
• Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference and Social Science asks for input regarding issues in the ethics and statistics.
• M-Phi explains the elementary philosophical resolutions of paradoxes.
• Xi’an’s Og is still Bayesian even if Stephen Senn thinks otherwise.

Shorts

• neverendingbooks combines a 48 posts into an ebook Monsters and Moonshine.

Enjoy!

Art, Essays etc.

• matthen takes an astroidal curve to the next level.
• Mr Honner suffers gladly for a piece of icy mathematical beauty.
• Gli Studenti Oggi starts a new series on Eratosthenes (translation).
• Nanoexplanations ponders lack of industry implementations at the example of the recent Stratfor hack.

Education

• Angrymath offers a neat example for how to bring statistics into the classroom.
• Musing Mathematically makes a case for teachers to not just teach, but DO math too.
• Math Hombre observes how modern technology can (and does) change us and the younger generations.
• Popinga shares a beautiful exposition on self-reference, tautologies and contradictions (translation).

Research

• Gyre&Gimble expands an article on abuse of notation.
• Felix Breuer recaps the experience of giving a different kind of course  ”Using intuitive geometry”
• The Math Less Traveled arrives at a self-square decadic number.

Shorts

Enjoy!

History, Journalism, Essays etc.

• bit-player reflects on the acceleration of history regarding the paradigms of physics.
• At amazings.es, Clara Grima explained how to explain her research in computational geometry to 3 year olds (translation).
• The Renaissance Mathematicus debunks a few myths about Newton’s appointment as Lucasian Professor.

Education

• Mathalicious doesn’t see online learning as something that will bring down traditional classroom-teaching, but as a tool we should embrace to assist us in the classroom and free up time for the less technical (and more inspiring) parts of math-education.
• The MIT will start a new online program that is open for everyone, but you have to pay for the examination. Casting out Nines ponders what it could mean for higher education in general, if this is successful.
• In response to a “Forbes”-list on which problems will disappear for the youngest generation, Teaching College Math lists some new problems that come with the solutions to the old ones.
• Misscalcul8 has a bad day because she doesn’t know how to inspire students by relating math with the real world, because she doesn’t use math in the real world herself. Why is this so much easier in literature or social studies? (She followed up on a hopeful note)

Research

• OR by the Beach used Constraint Programming to find a stable marriage of Santa’s Reindeers.
• The Geomblog continued reporting on the ICDM, writing about social networks and negative results on Stochastic Kroneker graphsand measures for classifier performance.
• Mathbabe asked “Why work?”.
• Numbers rule your world reflected on “Derman, Rodrik and the nature of statistical models”.
• Disquisitiones Mathematicae starts a series on Szemerédi’s regularity Lemma.
• At The n-Category Cafe, Tom Leinster shares some insights on the law of large numbers from Alex Simpson’s talk at the celebrations of Peter Hancock’s 60th birthday.

Community

• JD2718 tells the story of Raqnel James, a teacher was falsely accused of aggravated harassment.
• Frank Morgan gives detailed advice on writing an REU proposal for support from the NSF.
• Images des Mathématiques has a report from the meeting on Mathematics and Art at the Banff International Research Station (translation).

Enjoy!

Exposition, Essays etc.

• Punk Rock Operations Research gathers OR-flavored pickup lines - and did not forget to include Lem’s Cyberiad love sonnet.
• Modulo Errors simulates Lichtenberg figures (“captured lightning”) and gives you an applet for your own Christmas tree.
• Mathematical Magic gives a proof without words of a theorem of Gomory on tailless checkerboards (translation).
• cp’s mathem-o-blog analyzes the “princess on a graph” puzzle.

Education

• Angles of Reflection thinks that sometimes low tech is enough for engaging students: Using white-boards for working in groups on problems of the students choice.
• Math 老师 (lǎoshī) works out a curious identity of angles.
• I hope this old train breaks down on being the new teacher: suddenly the own opinion is not as valued as it used to be.
• yofx rocked an algebra final with a Prezi presentation.

Research

• Models of Reality asks where likelihoods come from – and despite the apparent naivite of the question, Daniel’s post is anything but.
• The Geomblog comments on the importance of publishing negative results, especially in data mining.
• mathbabe points out the implication of the conservation law of money for development of economic bubbles and the (European) financial crisis.

Community

• PhD+epsilon shares the experience of tenure reviews.
• James Colliander reports on a town hall meeting at the Canadian Mathematical Society’s Winter Meeting.
• Images des mathématiques explains why the Gaussian distribution appeared at protests in Moscow (translation).
• Peter Cameron spreads Geoff White’s idea of 50 proofs to read before you die.
• Ryan O’Donnell is developing a textbook, Analysis of Boolean Functions, publicly on wordpress — read his guest post at Computational Complexity or Gil Kalai’s impressions at Combinatorics and more.

Shorts, Shoutouts etc.

• reflectivemathsteacher celebrates its first anniversary — congrats!
• Popinga hosts the 44th Italian Carnival of Mathematics (translation).
• MathsInsider chooses its favorite online maths programs of the year.
• Gaussianos shares a Geogebra-applet for the ruler-and-compass construction of the heptadecagon (translation).
• Nuit Blanche shares a full year of posts as PDF — a whopping 872 pages!

Enjoy!

Education

Park Mathematics discussed algebra as a natural thought process, being reflection on past events.

Think Thank Thunk inspires with a story of applying mathematics — involves dropping flour bags from a plane!

exzuberant discovers how students might get the impression you have favourites even if you don’t, and discusses what to do about it.

Research

Nanoexplanations studied a computational geometry problem relevant to printed [...]

Educators

21st Century Educator collected 10.000 tweets of #pencilchat gone viral.

Think Thank Thunk is grieving for grades after teaching without grading for an entire semester.

Exzuberant offered ideas for end-of-year maths classes.

f(t) function of time took lots of good ideas for learning about surfaces and volume, and turns it into a coherent story for the classroom.

Researchers

Peter Cameron had a [...]