Today I got to interview another great author of a Princeton University Press title. "Heavenly Mathematics: The Forgotten Art of Spherical Trigonometry" is a delightful exploration of the techniques that ancient and medieval people from different cultures used to navigate and map the stars and the seas along with modern methods. There's a strong focus [...]
The second “instructioned” puzzle is Portals by Palmer Mebane. It is an insanely beautiful and difficult logic puzzle that consists of known puzzle types interconnected to each other through portals. Here Palmer Mebane explains how portals work:
“Each of the ten puzzles corresponds to a color, seen above the grid [...]
There were a couple of puzzles during the MIT Mystery Hunt that were not so mysterious. Unlike in traditional hunt puzzles, these puzzles were accompanied by instructions. As a result you can dive in and just enjoy solving the logic part of the puzzle without bothering about the final phase, [...]
Dr. Keith Devlin joins me for a second podcast interview. Keith Devlin and I first spoke last February. Last night Keith Devlin shared in great detail his experience teaching "Introduction to Mathematical Thinking" MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). If you're considering enrolling in the MOOC when it's next offered in March, or if you might [...]
Stephen Hawking was once told by an editor that every equation in
a book would halve the sales. Curiously, the opposite seems to happen when it comes to research
papers. Include a bit of maths in the abstract (a kind of summary) and people rate your paper higher —
even if the maths makes no sense at all. At least this is what a
study
published in the Journal Judgment
and decision making seems to suggests.read more
Shecky over at the Math Frolic Blog has been a great supporter of this podcast series and recently made this observation: I've been pleasantly surprised by the degree to which 'math people,' including such prominent and busy ones as [Ian] Stewart, Keith Devlin, Steven Strogatz and others, are willing to share themselves with the learning [...]
Mircea Pitici has taken on a huge task, to present the best articles in Mathematics for the year. For three years running he's edited a book for Princeton University Press with his picks. Since identifying great communicators is a big interest of mine I'm delighted to get to pick his brain for an hour. [ [...]
I was very honored to have Dr. Ian Stewart give me an hour of his time this morning to interview him about his enthusiasm for communicating Math to the public. Dr. Stewart is the author of a couple of dozen very popular Math books. You can see a list at Amazon.com. Dr. Stewart and I [...]
I'm excited to announce that Volume Two of Matthew Watkins' "Secrets of Creation" trilogy, "The Enigma of the Spiral Waves," is now available. From the author's web site: The Enigma of the Spiral Waves takes its readers further into into the workings of the number system. Continuing to make use of Watkins and Tweed's innovative [...]