Swans on Tea

Dean Dad asks
Why do so many states require only two years of math in high school?
[…]
We have anecdotal evidence that suggests that students who actually take math for all four years of high school do better in math here than those who don’t. We also have anecdotal evidence that bears crap in the woods. Why [...]

[finger, prick] ≠ 0
( … lots of George Carlin on HBO lately … )

I read The Devil Is in the Digits, an analysis of the Iranian voting results, and something doesn’t feel quite right about it. (And it’s not that these two political science student authors are being touted as mathematicians in some of the blogs linking to the story) Disclaimer: there seem to be [...]

Some random thoughts on coordinate systems, math-y terminology and the real world.
I went into Bed, Bath & Beyond the other day, and wondered, “What’s beyond Bed, Bath & Beyond? The name does not specify how far beyond bed and bath it goes.
As you drive through northern Pennsylvania there’s a sign that reads “Endless Mountains, [...]

Too complex to exist
Complexity and connectivity, and the problems they can cause. And the notion that “too big to fail” might mean “too big to be allowed to exist.”
Much like the power grid, the financial system is a series of complex, interlocking contingencies. And in such a system, the biggest risk of all - [...]

Uncertain Principles: Algebra Is Like Sunscreen
My one-word piece of advice for students planning to study physics (or any other science, really, but mostly physics): Algebra.
Since we’re on the topic of math, let’s double the fun by visiting Cocktail PArty Physics: NEW VOICES: “math sucks”
“When I write, I can say whatever I want to say, [...]

ArXiv: Minimizing the footprint of your laptop (on your bedside table)
We are considering all placements of the laptop such that it will not topple o the table;
these are exactly the placements for which the midpoint of the laptop is also a point of the
table. We are then interested in determining for which of these [...]

An interesting graph of life expectancy vs per-capita income, for a bunch of different countries around the world. What is so trés cool is that you can animate it to run it from 1800 to the present. France does a meteoric rise very early on with no change in income, war participants take [...]

Frivolous Theorem of Arithmetic
Very frivolous. Very true.

Towards a grand unification of cutlery
It’s got a Venn diagram, so it must be science-y.
Also, there’s the natural bar graph and spaghettieis

New Pattern Found in Prime Numbers
Since the late ‘70s, researchers have known that prime numbers themselves, when taken in very large data sets, are not distributed according to Benford’s law. Instead, the first digit distribution of primes seems to be approximately uniform. However, as Luque and Lacasa point out, smaller data sets (intervals) of primes [...]

Poll: How many millions are in a trillion?
I’m not sure which is worse: that only a fifth of the respondents knew the answer, or that two-thirds thought they knew, and were wrong.
This report presents the findings of a telephone survey conducted among a national probability sample of 1,001 adults comprising 501 men and 500 [...]