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 …

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 …

On Education Studies and the Problem of High Dimensions: A Plea for Wisdom and Judgment

As I think and read about various educational approaches (in the process of preparing for the course I’m teaching in the fall about math and writing), I sometimes see studies with conclusions like this: Students who were taught using method A significantly outperformed students taught using method B. Sometimes, method A is the new and …

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 …

Interesting Articles: The Dickens/Dostoevsky Hoax, the Mars Rover, Jason Collins, Janet Malcolm, Einstein’s Hoagies

If you haven’t read Eric Naiman’s fascinating article about the hoax of Dostoevsky meeting Dickens yet, you should. (It’s a long but fun read; give yourself time to enjoy it.) A great New Yorker article on NASA’s Curiosity rover to Mars, by Burkhard Bilger. A few questions: (1) There’s a high failure rate in these …