{"id":639,"date":"2013-06-04T15:41:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T19:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/?p=639"},"modified":"2014-03-21T14:32:40","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T18:32:40","slug":"links-number-theory-mel-brooks-garden-hermits-gay-marriage-passwords-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/04\/links-number-theory-mel-brooks-garden-hermits-gay-marriage-passwords-etc\/","title":{"rendered":"Links: Number Theory, Mel Brooks, Garden Hermits, Gay Marriage, Passwords, etc"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I promise to have some real posts soon&#8212;an announcement describing my <a href=\"http:\/\/english125.rafekinsey.com\">freshman writing course about math<\/a>, and a two-part series on the late economist Albert Hirschman, including a discussion of how his theories apply to the tech world&#8212;but for now a few links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s big news in math with Yitang Zhang&#8217;s proof of a big result in number theory. What struck me most was the beautiful story behind the work: Zhang didn&#8217;t find a tenure-track job, and toiled for years in obscurity, working at a Subway (sic!) and as an accountant before finding a non-tenure-track job at New Hampshire.  For more, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.simonsfoundation.org\/features\/science-news\/unheralded-mathematician-bridges-the-prime-gap\/\">this article<\/a> from the Simons Foundation, which did the best job giving a sense of his story. (I hope some publication&#8212;the <em>New Yorker?<\/em>, or does the new <em>New Republic<\/em> want to give it a try?<sup id=\"fnref-639-1\"><a href=\"#fn-639-1\" rel=\"footnote\">1<\/a><\/sup>&#8212;can do a good longform profile on Zhang.) An interesting tidbit is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.math.purdue.edu\/~ttm\/ZhangYt.pdf\">this<\/a> reflection from Zhang&#8217;s advisor at Purdue, Tzuong-Tsieng Moh.\n<p><a name=\"ellenberg\"><\/a>For more about Zhang&#8217;s result, see Jordan Ellenberg&#8217;s excellent article on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/health_and_science\/do_the_math\/2013\/05\/yitang_zhang_twin_primes_conjecture_a_huge_discovery_about_prime_numbers.html\">Slate<\/a>. What&#8217;s particularly important about Ellenberg&#8217;s article is his emphasis on <em>heuristics<\/em> and <em>non-rigourous arguments<\/em> in mathematical thinking. Yes, pure math requires formal proof in the end, but the <em>process<\/em> relies on a much wider variety of epistemological processes. (Note that Ellenberg&#8217;s article, though written for a popular audience, struck me as more demanding on the reader than most popular expositions. For non-math people, if there are parts that are confusing, don&#8217;t feel bad, and forge onward.)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>On a lighter note, do watch this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Saz0FrMvlq8\">video<\/a> of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft singing <em>Sweet Georgia Brown<\/em> in Polish. (If you insist on skipping their banter&#8212;don&#8217;t!&#8212;the singing starts around 1:45 in.) They did this for the 1983 film <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0086450\/\">To Be or Not To Be<\/a>, which is a fun time if you&#8217;re looking for something not too serious. (The youtube clip here isn&#8217;t from the movie, it&#8217;s from a television show, but it&#8217;s as good as the clip in the movie, indeed arguably better because it isn&#8217;t lip-synched as in the movie.) (h\/t to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2013\/05\/20\/182609040\/mel-brooks-i-m-an-egot-so-i-don-t-need-any-more\">this<\/a> Fresh Air interview of Brooks)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Ezekiel Emanuel with an interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com\/2013\/06\/02\/a-simple-way-to-reduce-suicides\/?hp\">piece<\/a> in the <em>Times<\/em> on how to reduce suicides.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Leon Wieseltier on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newrepublic.com\/article\/113299\/leon-wieseltier-commencement-speech-brandeis-university-2013\">humanities<\/a> in <em>The New Republic<\/em>. I don&#8217;t fully agree, in the following sense: I think people need to understand <em>both<\/em> the humanities and the sciences.<sup id=\"fnref-639-fn1\"><a href=\"#fn-639-fn1\" rel=\"footnote\">2<\/a><\/sup> But given that the intellectual tug-of-war has pushed so strongly to the side of science&#8212;although too often in a problematic <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newrepublic.com\/article\/books-and-arts\/magazine\/105703\/the-naked-and-the-ted-khanna\">TEDified<\/a> discourse that ignores methodological issues<sup id=\"fnref-639-fn2\"><a href=\"#fn-639-fn2\" rel=\"footnote\">3<\/a><\/sup>&#8212;Wieseltier provides an important counterweight.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>An interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/security\/2013\/05\/how-crackers-make-minced-meat-out-of-your-passwords\/\">article<\/a> in <em>Ars Technica<\/em> on password security.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Did you know that in 18th century England real humans were hired to serve as garden hermits? Alice Gregory has a great <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/ideas\/2013\/05\/18\/garden-hermit-needed-apply-within\/0DKsVYhtCSgVEwHtzF7u3L\/story.html?camp=id\">article<\/a> on this in the  <em>Boston Globe<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to tread very delicately here. I strongly support gay marriage,<sup id=\"fnref-639-newyorker\"><a href=\"#fn-639-newyorker\" rel=\"footnote\">4<\/a><\/sup> and abhor homophobia. So I want to be explicit in saying I don&#8217;t agree with him here,<sup id=\"fnref-639-grice\"><a href=\"#fn-639-grice\" rel=\"footnote\">5<\/a><\/sup> but Michael Kinsley has an interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newrepublic.com\/article\/113186\/ben-carson-and-gay-marriage-police\">article<\/a> in <em>The New Republic<\/em> on gay marriage and the controversy surrounding the promiment conservative surgeon Benjamin Carson. I haven&#8217;t followed the details&#8212;it sounds like Carson has said some pretty bad things&#8212;but I think it&#8217;s important that we take a moment to listen to Kinsley, especially because of the danger that comes from stifling free speech at universities. A key fact is that this was about a commencement speech. Put aside that commencement speeches are usually dull.<sup id=\"fnref-639-gomes\"><a href=\"#fn-639-gomes\" rel=\"footnote\">6<\/a><\/sup> The more important thing is that commencements are about the graduates. I&#8217;d be uncomfortable with something overly political either way.<\/p>\n<p>See also <a href=\"http:\/\/observer.com\/2013\/05\/did-michael-kinsley-invent-gay-marriage\/\">The Observer<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/dish.andrewsullivan.com\/2013\/06\/04\/whats-in-a-bigot\/\">Andrew Sullivan<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/gawker.com\/michael-kinsley-speaks-up-for-the-misunderstood-homopho-509131106\">Gawker<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newrepublic.com\/article\/113240\/gay-marriage-evan-wolfson-responds-michael-kinsley\">Evan Wolfson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"footnotes\">\n<hr \/>\n<ol>\n<li id=\"fn-639-1\">\n<p>If I didn&#8217;t have a thesis to write, a course to design, and a job to find this summer, and if I didn&#8217;t lack the necessary clips and connections with the journalism world to get the assignment, I would be tempted to try\u2026 (If anyone from the <em>New Yorker<\/em> is reading, choose me, not Sylvia Nasar, my thesis can wait!)&#160;<a href=\"#fnref-639-1\" rev=\"footnote\">&#8617;<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"fn-639-fn1\">\nHere I&#8217;m including economic and probabilistic thinking, among the things, in the &#8220;sciences&#8221;. Indeed, those are <em>far more important<\/em> than knowledge of physics, I would argue. Perhaps we need to change C.P. Snow&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1107606144\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1107606144&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=rafkin-20\">example<\/a> from the laws of thermodynamics to those of economics and probability.&#160;<a href=\"#fnref-639-fn1\" rev=\"footnote\">&#8617;<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"fn-639-fn2\">\nYet another reason why humanists need to understand science is the overabundance of journalism that fails to understand correlation vs causation, etc.&#160;<a href=\"#fnref-639-fn2\" rev=\"footnote\">&#8617;<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"fn-639-newyorker\">\nAlthough, for an amusing take, see <a href=\"https:\/\/cartoonbank.licensestream.com\/LicenseStream\/Store\/Content?Filter.SearchString=%22suffered%20enough%22#\/Filter.SearchString=%22suffered%20enough%22%20married&amp;search=\">this<\/a> <em>New Yorker<\/em> cartoon by Michael Shaw.&#160;<a href=\"#fnref-639-newyorker\" rev=\"footnote\">&#8617;<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"fn-639-grice\">\nA word to the Griceans out there&#8212;for those who don&#8217;t know who <a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/grice\/\">Grice<\/a> is, I promise to say much more about him this summer and fall in the context of my writing course&#8212;let me make clear that that proviso applies to every link. I just wanted to articulate that more explicitly here.&#160;<a href=\"#fnref-639-grice\" rev=\"footnote\">&#8617;<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"fn-639-gomes\">\nA singular exception is the speech the late Reverend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/02\/us\/02gomes.html\">Peter Gomes<\/a> gave at Stanford&#8217;s Baccalaureate in 2008.  It&#8217;s available to watch online on <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/CuL7qreqHuE?t=23m42s\">youtube<\/a> starting around 23:45 in. (Sadly, this video has received less than 1% of the views that Oprah received for her commencement speech the next day.) A full transcript is also <a href=\"http:\/\/news.stanford.edu\/news\/2008\/june18\/bacgomes-061808.html\">available<\/a>, but you should watch the speech, since it&#8217;s not the same on paper without Rev. Gomes&#8217; eloquent oration.&#160;<a href=\"#fnref-639-gomes\" rev=\"footnote\">&#8617;<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I promise to have some real posts soon&#8212;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&#8212;but for now a few links: There&#8217;s big news in math with Yitang Zhang&#8217;s proof of a big &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/04\/links-number-theory-mel-brooks-garden-hermits-gay-marriage-passwords-etc\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Links: Number Theory, Mel Brooks, Garden Hermits, Gay Marriage, Passwords, etc&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,47,88],"tags":[79,118,122,126,119,127,21,125,124,123,117,120,121],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":910,"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rafekinsey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}