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 …

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 …

The Potsdam Miracle: Lessons in Revolutionizing Undergraduate Mathematics

(There’s a printer- and footnote-friendly pdf version—with links still working!—here if you prefer.) A few days ago, while browsing in the library,1 I stumbled across something pretty remarkable. John Poland, writing in 1987 about this “Modern Fairy Tale”, describes the scene: Far away from the hustle and bustle, tucked away in a rural corner of …

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 …