Earlier this month, Oakland elected its first Asian American to the less than coveted role of city mayor. Jean Quan emerged victorious this election day, although at one point she was trailing her opponent by 11 percentage points. Understood in context, however, her victory is perhaps less surprising – rather than winning by Plurality, Quan won . . . → Read More: Instant Runoff Voting in Oakland
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A couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post ran an op-ed written by G. V. Ramanathan, emeritus Professor in mathematics, statistics, and computer science, entitled “How much math do we really need?” As the title suggests, Ramanathan uses his space in the paper to argue against the grain of conventional wisdom when it comes to mathematics . . . → Read More: A Sufficient Mathematical Background It has already made the internet rounds, but it seems appropriate, given his popular appeal, to remark on the passing of mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot. Mandelbrot, perhaps best well known for coining the term fractal (and for his related popular work on the subject), died last week at the age of 85. Mandelbrot’s popularization of fractal geometry garnered . . . → Read More: RIP Benoît Mandelbrot If you went to the movies in Los Angeles this summer, you may have seen the following ad from Stand Up to Cancer, a charitable program whose telethon aired last Friday night. A clear homage to MasterCard‘s long-running Priceless campaign, this ad swaps out prices for odds, ending with the sobering fact that 1 . . . → Read More: Stand Up to Questionable Odds It’s rare for mathematical research to break into the mainstream media. New papers are posted on the arXiv every day, and published in journals all over the world throughout the year, but unless a famous problem is purported to have been solved (in this case, a famous problem is usually one that has a cash prize . . . → Read More: Math of the Rubik’s Cube As summer reaches its midpoint, we come to the end of another rousing year of World Cup soccer. As with any international sporting event, fans all over the world have undoubtedly had their share of ups and downs. Of all the countries in this year’s tournament, however, I think Germany may be receiving the most attention, . . . → Read More: Let’s Make a Deal with Paul the Octopus Last week, Slashdot posted an interesting link to a problem posed at the most recent Gathering 4 Gardner, a mathematical (or perhaps I should say mathemagical) convention created in honor of the late Martin Gardner. The question, posed by Gary Foshee, is as follows: you have a friend with two children, one of whom is a . . . → Read More: A New Birthday Problem I’ve previously discussed some mathematical approaches to dating. Specifically, we have seen how choosing a partner can be modeled as a type of secretary problem, and, if you like, you can estimate the number of candidates you should consider by using a modified Drake’s equation. However, as you know, building a lasting relationship is about more . . . → Read More: Love and Marriage Not long ago, I wrote an article in commemoration of Martin Gardner’s 95th birthday. Sadly, it seems this will be my last article in celebration of his birth, as he passed away late last month. Through his passing, though, his influence has become even more apparent. Perhaps because he published mathematical games in Scientific American for 25 . . . → Read More: RIP Martin Gardner I’d just like to take a moment to remember Jaime Escalante, who died today at the age of 79. I’ve talked about this East LA math teacher whose antics were given a national stage in the film Stand and Deliver before, and out of all the films I’ve seen that try to do justice to mathematics, . . . → Read More: RIP Mr. Escalante |
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