One of the many things I love about mathematics is that results initially discovered in one realm pop up in surprising places. A terrific example is Benford’s law of digit bias (those taking Math 341 in the fall will get to learn a lot more about this!). Benford’s… Continue reading »
In my opinion, compactness is the most important concept in mathematics. Here’s an article, recently published in Pro Mathematica, that tracks compactness from the one-dimensional real line in calculus to infinite dimensional spaces of functions and surfaces. Continue reading »
This entry is written by Nico Aiello ’09 on behalf of SMASAB 2009. At Williams, every senior math/stats major has to give a colloquium talk. If you had asked me on the morning of my colloquium how I felt about the colloquium requirement, it’s… Continue reading »
Crocodilia, the biological order that includes alligators and crocodiles, have the interesting property that the gender of offspring is not determined by random genetics but by the environment of the nesting site. Prime nesting sights, in wet marshes near water sources, produce nearly 80% female hatchlings. The… Continue reading »
In honor of the strong performance by Williams College on the Putnam Math Competition (placing 14th out of over 500 teams, with two students in the top 200 and two in the top 500 in North America), this is a good time to talk about why these… Continue reading »
Recent concerns of serious side effects in drugs (culminating in the withdrawals of blockbuster drugs such as Merck’s Vioxx) have lead to an increased public interest in the safety and toxicity of pharmaceutical products. Drug safety data are commonly included in drug labels or the fine print on… Continue reading »
Cildo Meireles is a well-known Brazilian artist, associated with the art movement “Neo-concrete art”. He was recently given a full retrospective by the Tate Modern Museum in London, which I had the opportunity to see in December 2008. Meireles’ intriguing and aesthetically seductive installations… Continue reading »
Almost 30 years ago, something happened that made introductory statistics harder to teach. Students didn’t suddenly become less teachable, nor did professors forget their craft. It was that we began to switch from teaching statistics as a mathematics course to teaching the art and craft of statistics as its… Continue reading »
NPR's Here and Now from November 24th, 2008 featured a discussion of some mathematical recipes for the holidays. The first recipe from Instructibles is for a "pie-cosahedron". The name (and shape) come from the icosahedron, a 20-sided platonic solid. The pie-cosahedron is a 20-sided pie. Check out the recipe here. (This pie would also make a great snack for anyone playing Dungeons and Dragons.) Continue reading »
This past week marks the rising of the Sol LeWitt sun in my part of the world. At the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA), a beautiful new exhibition on The ABCDs of Sol LeWitt has just opened, exploring the underlying grammar of his art and ideas. … Continue reading »