Water Waves with Angled Crests: Preprint Available

At some point, I hope I'll have time to write a longer exposition of my thesis research for the general public. For now, though, I'd like to announce that a preprint of the paper containing my research, A Priori Estimates for Two-Dimensional Water Waves with Angled Crests, jointly written with my advisor, Sijue Wu, is …

Links: Collapsing NYC Skyscraper, NCAA Bagmen, Yahoo, Health Insurance, Etc.

Now that my PhD is done---for the water wave aficionados out there, I will post a link to the preprint of my research sometime soon, I hope1---it's time to start catching up on things. The writeup on my math, linguistics and writing freshman seminar is in the works. For now, here are assorted links. This …

Links: Crowds and the Recession, Snowden, Win $1 Million with Circuits, Social Choice Theory, and More

As promised, more substantive posts (including a reflection on my freshman seminar on math, linguistics, and writing) to come soon, once I finish my thesis.1 For now, assorted links accrued over procrastination during thesis-writing. Terry Tao has a really cool idea about using circuit design from electrical engineering to solve the million-dollar Navier-Stokes problem. A …

Quick Update on My Freshman Writing Course

In case anyone is wondering: I haven't disappeared. My freshman seminar last semester on math, linguistics, and writing went really well, and I'm looking forward to writing an extensive reflection on what I learned from the experience. But I do have a dissertation that needs to be finished, so that reflection is on the back …

Links: The Future of the Left, Tech Intellectuals, Self-Serve Gas Stations, Etc

Simon Winchester, My First Mistake. An article by Peter Beinart on the future of the left. Paul Berman argues for music lessons. Is anyone else as confused as I am about how it's possible that a new ligament in the human knee was only just discovered? Interesting interview with literary agent Andrew Wylie. On The …

Links: Pynchon, Marissa Mayer, Larry Summers, Finance, Blogging

I have a bit of a backlog here, but really what's so important about being timely with these things? Who cares if many of these came out in the end of August...it's been a busy semester. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Pavlov Poke for Facebook. Slate: This browser shortcut is like ctrl-z for the entire internet An …

Wieseltier on Scientism

Leon Wieseltier offers a great sermon against scientism. The question of the place of science in knowledge, and in society, and in life, is not a scientific question. Science confers no special authority, it confers no authority at all, for the attempt to answer a nonscientific question. It is not for science to say whether …

An Update on My Math & Linguistics Freshman Writing Course

I thought I should provide a quick update on the freshman writing course I'm teaching this fall, Language, Logic and Information: Using Mathematics to Understand Writing, Communication and Argument. (For more, take a look at the website for the course, which is now full of lots of material.1 You can also check out my original …

Links: Economics, Breaking Bad, the Moon, Entrepreneurship, Albert Murray, Etc.

Shockingly, it's difficult to keep up a blog while finishing a Ph.D., designing a new course, and looking for jobs. I have some drafts of substantive posts that I hope to polish up and publish soon. For now, some more links. Interesting article on the relationship between people's behavior and the lunar cycle, from the …

Links: Misapplications of math, journalism, AIDS, EB White, Pricing, Gifted Students

A tremendously sad story about skewed incentives that make certain people try to get AIDS. This is a pretty outrageous misapplication of mathematics to psychology. Journalism teachers on journalism school An interesting profile of several talented students in a magnet program near DC, 20 years ago. The piece focuses on a young woman, Elizabeth Mann, …