A blog about ideas, literature, math, economics, language, law, technology, society, etc.
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 …
Continue reading “Water Waves with Angled Crests: Preprint Available”
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 …
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 …
Continue reading “Links: The Future of the Left, Tech Intellectuals, Self-Serve Gas Stations, Etc”
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 …
Continue reading “An Update on My Math & Linguistics Freshman Writing Course”
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 …
(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 …
Continue reading “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.) 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 …
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 …
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 …
Continue reading “Links: Number Theory, Mel Brooks, Garden Hermits, Gay Marriage, Passwords, etc”
Many things in life are decided by groups of people making judgments together—in courts, committees, board rooms, legislatures, etc. Collective decision-making has much to recommend it: groups of people can pool their wisdom, no one person can rule by fiat, organizations can benefit from the cohesion of people working together, etc. And, of course, there …
Continue reading “The Irrationality of Committees and Courts: A Voting Paradox”