February 28, 2012
The Mathematical Association of America has now posted a thorough review of the Big Sudoku Book. The review is by Mark Hunacek, of Iowa State University. His verdict:
This is a delightful book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. In some sense it is hardly surprising that I would enjoy it, since…
February 27, 2012
If you have a few minutes to kill, go check out this podcast over at Sol Lederman's website “Wild About Math.” Laura Taalman and I discuss the BSB (by which I mean the Big Sudoku Book). We talk Sudoku, math, education and plenty of other stuff. We originally planned on talking for thirty minutes…
February 26, 2012
Me and my homeys got together last week for one more run at the US Amateur Team East:
The fellow in the Rocky Balboa hat is Ned Walthall. In the middle is Curt Kimbler, followed by Doug Proll on the end. How long have we been playing chess together? Well, let's just say that Ned used to give…
February 17, 2012
Well, I'm off to sunny Parsippany, New Jersey to participate in the annual chess extravaganza known as the US Amateur Team East. It's the best tournament of the year, and, frankly, pretty much the only one I still play in. See you when I return!
February 15, 2012
If anyone reading this lives near Harrisonburg, Virginia, let me encourage you, in the strongest possible terms, to check out the high school's production of the musical Les Miserables. You have until Sunday. I've seen some good high school shows in my time, but this is really something special…
February 14, 2012
Here's a logic puzzle for you: Suppose I offer you a million dollars, in return for which you agree to answer a certain yes/no question. You can answer either truthfully or falsely as you desire. That's it. Should you accept that offer? Solution below the fold.
Those of you reading this who…
February 12, 2012
The current issue of The Philosopher's Magazine contains a lengthy interview with philosopher Elliott Sober, a prominent philosopher of biology. Most of the interview focuses on the problem of reconciling evolution and theism, with Sober serving up the standard talking points. For me the…
February 10, 2012
Over the last few days, there has been no shortage of crazed invective on the contraception issue from certain religious folks. For them, the notion that religious institutions providing public services ought to play by the same rules as everyone else constitutes tyranny. So we have Rick Santorum…
February 2, 2012
Here's Alabama state senator Shadrack McGill explaining why it's a bad idea to raise teachers's salaries:
If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach.
To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day…
February 1, 2012
By now I'm sure we are all familiar with the Jessica Ahlquist case in Cranston, RI. The New York Times provides a helpful summary:
She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist…
January 28, 2012
The Big Sudoku Book has received another review, and in an unexpected venue: The Wall Street Journal! The review is by Keith Devlin, a mathematician at Stanford University and the author of a small library of books of his own. Devlin writes:
The authors show vividly that mathematics is really…
January 27, 2012
Over at Talking Philosophy, Mike LaBossiere offers a defense of teachers's unions. He is a bit too tame for my taste, and he is far too respectful towards anti-union arguments that have far more to do with general hostility to public education than they do with measured criticism, but in the end…
January 25, 2012
Well, the BSB (that's the Big Sudoku Book) has now received its first review. It comes from Ed Pegg Jr., who runs an excellent website about mathematical games and puzzles and is very well-known among those interested in recreational mathematics. Did he like the book?
Along with Sudoku…
January 24, 2012
Since my little break has turned out to be longer than I anticipated, I fear that my blog muscles have atrophied a bit. So let's start flexing them again by revisiting a familiar topic: Adam and Eve.
Over at HuffPo, Peter Enns makes another contribution to the genre that tries to explain why…
January 10, 2012
In honor of the publication of the BSB (that's the Big Sudoku Book, for those not up on the local slang), my coauthor, Laura, and I hosted a session at last week's Joint Mathematics Meetings about the mathematics of Sudoku. I gave the opening talk in the session, an overview of some interesting…
January 2, 2012
I have a general policy of not blogging when I'm on the road, but I couldn't resist poking my head up to call your attention to this article, by Paul Wallace, over at HuffPo. Follow the link to see why...
December 31, 2011
Tomorrow I will observe New Year's Day by hopping into the Jasonmobile and driving to my New Jersey office. Which is to say, I will be visiting my parents. Then on Tuesday I shall hop on a train and sally forth to Boston, which is hosting the annual math extravaganza knows as the Joint…
December 30, 2011
Michael Ruse has written another post about morality. Sadly, he hasn't really clarified much of anything. Throughout this discussion his position has been that there are moral facts that we come to know through non-scientific means. I have been trying to understand how he justifies either part…
December 28, 2011
Time to show you the dramatic conclusion to the story I began yesterday.
Our problem was to define the complex exponential function in a way that was consistent with everything we knew about real exponential functions. We noticed that one of the standard rules for exponents implies
\[
e^{x+iy}=e…
December 27, 2011
Euler's identity is the equation:
\[
e^{i \pi} +1=0.
\]
If you have any taste for mathematics at all, it is hard not to smile at this. In one equation we have each of five “special” numbers (e, i, pi, 1 and 0), along with one instance of each of three basic arithmetic operations (addition,…
December 26, 2011
My earlier post on this subject was entitled “What is Scientism?” because, while I have seen the term thrown around in a number of venues, I have never been entirely sure what it means. Having had a chance now to digest some of the arguments raised in the comments, as well as the thoughts…
December 23, 2011
The BSB (that's the big Sudoku book, for those not up on the local slang) is now available! It's both a math book and a puzzle book. As math book it contains a survey of some of the mathematical aspects of Sudoku puzzles. For those familiar with the BMHB, the present book is considerably less…
December 22, 2011
This is Emily:
She sure does look comfortable, doesn't she? And why shouldn't she be? In a tour de force of inductive reasoning she figured that today would be like the previous 364 consecutive days, at least to the extent that I wouldn't even consider stuffing her into a box and bringing her…
December 20, 2011
You should read Ross Douthat's obnoxious eulogy for Christopher Hitchens just so you can enjoy this magnificent takedown from Charles Pierce, over at Esquire. Pierce writes:
For the sheer magnitude of its horsepucky, this column may well stand forever. Generations yet unborn will come and read it…
December 19, 2011
Michael Ruse has now written a second post on the subject of scientism. He gets down to business in the second paragraph:
My three examples of nonscientific truths were mathematics, morality, and answers to those kinds of philosophical meta-questions, like - “What is the truth status of claims…
December 18, 2011
In a HuffPo essay entitled “Why I Love Religion,” Rabbi Alan Lurie writes:
I love the holy texts, the rituals, the art, the histories, the practices, the mystical teachings and the sacred spaces. I love religion, while very aware of its obvious dangers and limitations, because for the last 15…
December 17, 2011
If you spend much time involved in science/religion discussions, you will inevitably hear the term “scientism” thrown around. Usually it is hurled as an epithet. In practical terms, to be accused of scientism is usually to be accused of being insufficiently respectful of religion.
But I've…
December 16, 2011
By now I'm sure everyone has heard that Christopher Hitchens has died. I don't have much to add to what everyone else has said, so I'll keep this short. I regard God is Not Great as a masterpiece, and if that had been the only thing he ever wrote, then, as we like to say at Passover, dayenu.…
December 8, 2011
It occurs to me that I haven't done a chess post in a while. It's possible that I'm the only one unhappy about that, but there's actually a big chess story in the news. You see, for the first time in nearly twenty years, an American chess player has defeated a sitting World Champion. The…
December 6, 2011
Blogger R. Joseph Hoffmann recently posted a stunningly idiotic essay lamenting the present state of atheist discourse. It's standard fare for him, this time expressed in especially pretentious and contentless prose. For example, I defy you to discern anything sensible in these two paragraphs:…
