Gendered conference campaign

26Jan11

A group of philosophers runs a gendered conference campaign, whose goal is to get conference organizers not to plan all-male rosters of speakers. Does math need a campaign like this? Discuss.

Filed under: ethics, math, philosophy, politics   |  63 Comments
Tags: conferences, gender, women in science

Compressed sensing, compressed MDS, compressed clustering, and my talk tomorrow

25Jan11

I’m talking tomorrow at the spanking-new SILO seminar (“Systems, Learning, Information, and Optimization”) in the spanking-new Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.  As you may know, I don’t do any research in any of the four subjects appearing in the acronym!  But I’ve been following some work in the area ever since last year’s very successful Topology [...]

Filed under: math   |  1 Comment
Tags: combinatorics, cs, interdisciplinary, metric embedding, silo, talks, trees, ultrametrics

Gowers & co. on the cap set problem

23Jan11

On the off chance you read my blog and not Gowers’ — Tim is talking about one of my very favorite open questions, the affine cap set problem, over at his place. I’m a little ambivalent about reading his posts — every time I think about this problem, I get sucked in and spend a [...]

Filed under: math   |  4 Comments
Tags: additive combinatorics, capset, combinatorics, gowers

Styxocracy

23Jan11

If you had five minutes to explain to a non-American friend how American political culture works, you’d do pretty well just to play them “Rockin the Paradise.”  (Starts at about 1:44 of the linked video.) Just in case you’re in a sonic environment where you can’t play Styx, here are the lyrics: Whatcha doin’ tonight? [...]

Filed under: music, nostalgia, offhand, politics   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: futurize our attitudes, rockin the paradise, styx

I do like the Beatles! I do!

22Jan11

Reader majordomo comments on my post about the Sat. Nite Duets/Fatty Acids: What is with you and obscure bands, I don’t understand your obsession with nameless, obscure bands. You’re probably one of those guys who hate the Beatles because too many people like them, right ? Actually, no.  When I was 11 the only two [...]

Filed under: blog, music   |  6 Comments
Tags: fatty acids, i am the walrus, obscurity, shows, the beatles

A primer on mapping class groups

15Jan11

Benson Farb and Dan Margalit have just finished the final version of A Primer on Mapping Class Groups, to appear from Princeton University Press next year.  And it’s available in .pdf at Dan’s web page.  To the extent I know anything about mapping class groups, it’s because of this book!  Highly recommended for anyone interested [...]

Filed under: books, math   |  2 Comments
Tags: benson farb, dan margalit, mapping class group, topology

Revenge of the intersentence double space

14Jan11

Farhad Manjoo, in Slate, delivers a spirited attack on double-spacers like me.  Apparently the intersentence double space is irrational and unbeautiful.  My readers mostly disagree, and more importantly, so does LaTeX.  This argument reminds me of books I used to read as a kid about the forthcoming rationalization of English spelling.  The inventor of the [...]

Filed under: language, slate   |  5 Comments
Tags: farhad manjoo, latex, melvil dui, space

Miscellaneous awesome

12Jan11

Arantxa Sanchez named her daughter Arantxa. You can watch an entire undergraduate course in abstract algebra by Dick Gross online. Milwaukee indie bros Sat. Nite Duets play the Project Lodge this Saturday, Jan 15.  (Fatty Acids open.)  Thanks to Muzzle of Bees for posting great .mp3s from these guys, whose records are available for free [...]

Filed under: lists, madison, music, shows, teaching   |  4 Comments
Tags: arantxa sanchez, benedict gross, dick gross, project lodge, sat. nite duets

Do mathematicians have “tiger mothers”? or: that’s funny, Norbert, you don’t look Chinese!

11Jan11

All the world — or at least all the world of parents of young kids — or at least all the world of educated parents of young kids who fret about their kids’ psychic and material well-being — is abuzz about Amy Chua’s article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” which starts out: A lot of [...]

Filed under: children, education, math, psychology, teaching   |  35 Comments

JMM, Golsefidy, Silverman, Scanlon

11Jan11

Like Emmanuel, I spent part of last week at the Joint Meetings in New Orleans, thanks to a generous invitation from Alireza Salefi Golsefidy and Alex Lubotzky to speak in their special session on expander graphs.  I was happy that Alireza was willing to violate a slight taboo and speak in his own session, since [...]

Filed under: math   |  1 Comment
Tags: alireza salehi golsefidy, conferences, expander graphs, expanders, heights, jonathan pila, rational points, tom scanlon