Author Archives: evelynjlamb

Twitter, but for Math, with Toots

Hooray, it’s yet another social network for you to join! I’m skeptical about new social media, but I’ve been seeing enough posts about mathstodon.xyz that I finally caved and got an account. Mathstodon is the math(s) “instance” of mastodon, a … Continue reading

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Best of the Bots

A slew of paint colors named by a neural network, including such gems as “turdly” and “rose hork,” made it big last week, with mentions in Ars Technica, The AV Club, and even The Atlantic. But for the story straight … Continue reading

Posted in Data Science, Mathematics and Computing | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

What Are You Going to Do with That?

For people in graduate school for math, the question, “What are you going to do with that?” often seems to have a clear, easy answer: “I’m going to be a math professor.” In grad school, our role models are the professors … Continue reading

Posted in Data Science, Math Education | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Recommended Reading: Euler, Erdős

Have you ever used an analogy in a conversation only to have the conversation derailed as the person with whom you’re speaking points out that the analogy is not quite perfect in some way? Of course it’s not perfect! If … Continue reading

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Maps and Math

Gauss’s Theorema Egregium was in the news recently! The news articles didn’t quite put it that way, though. Their headlines were more like, “Boston public schools map switch aims to amend 500 years of distortion.” That’s right, they’re switching from using … Continue reading

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Adding to the Faces of Mathematics on Wikipedia

For better or for worse, Wikipedia is the first place most people look when they want to learn about someone or something online. I don’t use Wikipedia as my sole source for important facts, but it’s a great first stop … Continue reading

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A Thrice-a-Day Complex Analysis Infusion

Sometimes I like to sit back and take in math via pictures only. The newest addition to my math picture blog stable is kettenreihen.wordpress.com where three times a day, a beautiful picture appears. These are graphs of complex-valued functions based … Continue reading

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How to Communicate in a Post-Truth World

Fake news is not new. For years I have rolled my eyes and scrolled by quack health and science stories, links from the satirical Borowitz Report shared credulously, and other incorrect information in my Facebook feed. I have often written … Continue reading

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Celebrating Black Mathematicians

As you may know, February is Black History Month in the U.S. To celebrate, the new website Mathematically Gifted and Black is featuring a different black mathematician every day this month. The site was started by mathematicians Erica Graham, Raegan … Continue reading

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Solidarity with Scientists

Mathematics has an interesting relationship to science. People often think of mathematicians as a subset of scientists, and scientists definitely use mathematics in their work, but our day-to-day work, careers, and the kinds of problems and thinking that interest us most … Continue reading

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