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For those who don’t believe we can actually use math to fight crime, the story of Harry Markopolos, the man who blew the whistle on Bernie Madoff, shows that a dream of using math to catch criminals need not be untenable. In a recent interview for 60 Minutes, Mr. Markopolos describes how he harnessed the . . . → Read More: Numb3rs in Real Life  I made my reservations fairly clear regarding the double dose of math holidays last month. Despite my objections, I remained confident that the headlines they gathered would quickly fade away, and I wouldn’t have to worry about these faux math headlines for the next 12 months. In this way, I was able to sleep . . . → Read More: Numerology Goes on Holiday (Again) I just noticed this article on the front page of Yahoo, which discusses the pending celebrations for tomorrow, in honor of the square root function. Tomorrow is given the name “Square Root Day,” naturally enough, because the date is 3/3/09. Seeing as how there are only 9 square root days per century, apparently the . . . → Read More: Square Root Day? In the continuing saga of animals that are better than you at math, it now appears that ants are much better than most of us at optimization. Granted, they may not be able to think abstractly, but in concrete terms, they far surpass us with a particular type of optimization: the efficiency of traffic flow. As . . . → Read More: Math Gets Around: The Entomology of Civil Engineering Here’s an interesting article about Tom Farber, a high school Calculus teacher from San Diego who is fighting tough economic times and cutbacks in education spending in a rather novel way – he’s selling ad space on math tests. The goal here certainly doesn’t seem to be the development of a second income. Many teachers report . . . → Read More: Commodify your Mathematics? Even though we’d like to accuse our math teachers of being more or less incompetent, there is at least one indication that math education in this country is making some progress. In particular, the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study shows American students have gained 11 points over their average performance . . . → Read More: Math in the News: Maybe the Sky Isn’t Falling, After All It looks like middle school math teachers can’t catch a break. According to a recent study, a significant percentage of math teachers in grades 5-8 do not have a degree or a certification in math. Sadly, the numbers are even worse for schools in low income areas. While it’s certainly true that you don’t need a . . . → Read More: Math in the News: Are Math Teachers Really Only One Chapter Ahead? I missed the memo on this one, but apparently worms aren’t the only animals capable of doing math. A recent experiment coming out of the University of Tokyo suggests that Asian elephants have an unexpected aptitude for arithmetic. While many animals have a rudimentary counting ability, and are able to distinguish between sets with . . . → Read More: Math in the News: Elephants are Smarter than your Babies As you may have heard, the economy is in a bit of trouble. People continue to debate the root cause of the current crisis: some blame so-called predatory lenders for pushing mortgages on people who couldn’t afford them, some blame the borrowers themselves for recklessly taking on loans to try and live beyond their means. . . . → Read More: Math in the News: Are Mathematicians the Reason Why You’re Broke? Earlier this month, the New York Times ran an article about the dearth of U.S. students with strong skills in mathematics. While this is not quite a revelation, it is made more timely by the recent release of a study that looked at data from Putnam exams, International Mathematical Olympiads, and data from other programs meant . . . → Read More: Math in the News: Is U.S. Culture Crushing Potential Mathletes? |
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