Terrence Tao wrote a blog post today about LaTeX bugs in WordPress. He suggests compiling a list of all bugs so that WordPress can work on them. I had already discovered the closed bracket bug that Tao describes. I have also encountered a bug similar to the one mentioned in the first comment to Tao’s…
Fibonachos
I wonder how many readers of the Sunday funnies understood the Foxtrot cartoon this morning. (Update: for those of you who landed on this page looking for a definition of the term “Fibonachos,” go here.)
Math on a bridge
God Plays Dice posted a link to a photo of some mathematics displayed prominently on a bridge. (No not that bridge.) Below is the photograph of the mean value theorem on a bridge in Beijing. Does anyone know the story behind this? [photo by Vmenkov published under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License]
The Great British Venn Diagram
I was very happy to stumble upon (thanks Ed) this explanation of the terms United Kingdom, Great Britain, etc.—via a Venn diagram. The precise definitions of these terms have always confused me. It was created by Sam Hughes. Follow the link to his page to read a more detailed discussion of the terms. My favorite line was the last…
Units are important
This made me laugh. My favorite line is “Well, I mean, it’s obviously a difference of opinion.” [via failblog]
Gibbs’ phase rule and Euler’s formula
Regular readers of this blog are probably well-acquainted with Euler’s beautiful polyhedron formula. Because I have written a few things about Euler’s formula, I get email about it from time-to-time. Most of the messages are very interesting and thought-provoking. The other day I received an email that asked: …Is the Gibbs phase rule for Variables, Phases, and Components the same thing as the Euler…
100th post
In honor of my 100th post I would like to share a quote from Freeman Dyson which appears in this month’s Notices of the American Mathematical Society. Some mathematicians are birds, others are frogs. Birds fly high in the air and survey broad vistas of mathematics out to the far horizon. They delight in concepts that unify our thinking…
Clearance price fail
Happy Monday! Here’s a funny math-related photo from yesterday’s Failblog. Where to begin with this one? There’s so much wrong with it (what’s a Sentai Fortrs?). But despite all of its problems, at least they put a negative sign next to the sale price to match the direction of the price difference! [failblog.org]
What is wrong with this picture?
This image illustrating the Pythagorean Theorem was created by the artist Mel Bochner. It appears on the cover of the January 2009 issue of the College Mathematics Journal. What is wrong with it? For the answer, visit the 360 blog.
Six degrees of separation
God Plays Dice wrote an interesting blog post asking whether Barack Obama has Erdos number. I gave a light-hearted talk about six degrees of separation / Kevin Bacon / Paul Erdos at our majors’ dinner a couple of years ago. It was fun. It is truly remarkable how tightly connected we all are. Here are some personal…
David Richeson: Division by Zero 