Math, Writing, and the World: The Freshman Writing Course I’m Teaching in the Fall

(There’s a printer- and footnote-friendly pdf version—with links still working!—here if you prefer.) This fall, I’m teaching a freshman writing course at the University of Michigan.1 I’ll be writing a lot about this course and related topics over the coming months, so I thought I’d take a moment to introduce the course and talk about …

Links: NSA, New Nobels, Marijuana Legalization, Corporations and the First Amendment, Roger Ebert, etc

A good article in Slate’s Explainer column on what the legal repercussions would be for congressmen who revealed NSA secrets. An interesting article by Graeme Wood in New York magazine about online reputation management. Gene Weingarten, A story that could make Roger Ebert look bad. Too soon? Often Weingarten is a bit (or, well, more …

Reality Bites as the Source for Infinite Jest?

Robert Harrison’s recent Entitled Opinions episode about David Foster Wallace reminded me of an interesting coincidence I discovered last year.1 In 1994, two years before the publication of David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus Infinite Jest, the generation X cult classic Reality Bites appeared. (Spoiler Alert: I’ll ruin thematic and plot elements of both works in …

Links: Probability and DNA Testing, 16th Century Executioners, Walmart as a Bank, Etc.

Jordan Ellenberg has an excellent article in Slate about probability and DNA testing for crimes. This is important to think about, especially as we consider the implications of the recent Supreme Court decision on such testing. (In particular, the larger the database, the bigger the problem.) What was it like to be an executioner in …

A Story about Bertrand Russell’s Plane Crash

In the past few days, a video has been circulating of an interview where Bertrand Russell credits smoking with saving his life.1 Russell explains: In fact, you know, on one occasion [smoking] saved my life. I was in an airplane, a man was getting a seat for me, and I said, “Get me a seat …

Links: Number Theory, Mel Brooks, Garden Hermits, Gay Marriage, Passwords, etc

I promise to have some real posts soon—an announcement describing my freshman writing course about math, and a two-part series on the late economist Albert Hirschman, including a discussion of how his theories apply to the tech world—but for now a few links: There’s big news in math with Yitang Zhang’s proof of a big …