Jay Michaelson on God vs. Gay, Dec 1

28Nov11

My friend Jay Michaelson, my go-to guy for all matters of Jewish learning, is speaking in Madison this Thursday evening about his new book God vs. Gay?:  The Religious Case for Equality. Recommended for all who care what feist left-wing observant Jews have to say about religion and sex.  Which is everyone, right? Book trailer:

Filed under: books, madison   |  2 Comments
Tags: gay, jay michaelson, judaism, lectures, religion

Why do people think government workers are stupid?

26Nov11

From Michael Lewis’s The Big Short: “You know how when you walk into a post office you realize there is such a difference between a government employee and other people,” said Vinny. “The ratings agency people were all like government employees.” Collectively they had more power than anyone in the bond markets, but individually they [...]

Filed under: books, economics   |  7 Comments

The Arrow-Debreu model wishes you a happy Thanksgiving

24Nov11

I keep going to talks that raise the question:  what is an equilibrium, in the sense of economics?  Not “what is the mathematical definition,” but “what is it, really?”  (The Big Short is relevant here too.)   I don’t have any thoughts of my own articulate enough for the blog, but in the spirit of [...]

Filed under: economics   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: efficiency, equilibrium, turkey

Math Girls

24Nov11

The holiday season approaches and surely you are looking for a new translation of a bestselling young adult novel from Japan which is half adolescent love story and half elementary number theory text.  You’re in luck.  Bento Books sent me a review copy of the book, Math Girls by Hiroshi Yuki (tr. Tony Gonzalez) and [...]

Filed under: books, math   |  3 Comments
Tags: young adult

Miscellaneous linkdump Nov 11

22Nov11

Orioles bring back the cartoon bird!  Tom Scocca approves, but grumpily.  What word describes my formerly retro hat that is now no longer retro? Old Skull was a punk band of Madison 9-year-olds that opened for Sonic Youth and got airtime on MTV in the late 1980s.  The rest of their story is pretty damn [...]

Filed under: baseball, books, education, lists, madison, math, music, orioles   |  2 Comments
Tags: asian-americans, inverse symbolic calculator, new york times, old skull, punk, uniforms, william sleator

Are math departments better at recruitment than elite financial firms?

21Nov11

Via Bryan Caplan, Lauren Rivera at Northwestern studied hiring practices at top financial, law, and consulting firms and found some surprises: [E]valuators drew strong distinctions between top four universities, schools that I term the super-elite, and other types of selective colleges and universities. So-called “public Ivies” such as University of Michigan and Berkeley were not [...]

Filed under: academia, college, economics, education, harvard, math   |  10 Comments
Tags: counterproductive, finance, hiring, recruitment

Scott Walker: not toast

20Nov11

Much was made of the WPR/St. Norbert poll released last week, in which 58% of respondents said they’d vote for Scott Walker’s opponent if a recall comes to pass, with only 38% saying they’d vote to keep the Governor in office.  Worth noting the numbers below the top line, though:  in the sample of 482 [...]

Filed under: madison, news, politics   |  2 Comments
Tags: elections, kloppenburg, polling, polls, recall, recall walker, scott walker, supreme court, wisconsin

Gonality, the Bogomolov property, and Habegger’s theorem on Q(E^tors)

20Nov11

I promised to say a little more about why I think the result of Habegger’s recent paper, ” Small Height and Infinite Non-Abelian Extensions,” is so cool. First of all:  we say an algebraic extension K of Q has the Bogomolov property if there is no infinite sequence of non-torsion elements x in K^* whose [...]

Filed under: math, papers   |  1 Comment
Tags: number theory, algebraic geometry, arithmetic geometry, elliptic curves, poonen, rational points, algebraic curves, expanders, gonality, heights, habegger, abramovich, zograf, bogomolov

Help me be a great Nim teacher

17Nov11

I’ll be at Marvelous Math Morning at CJ’s school this Saturday, playing Nim with kids ranging from K-5.  One simple goal is to teach them the winning strategy for the version of the game where there’s one pile and each player can draw 1 or 2 chips.  I’ve done that with CJ and he really [...]

Filed under: children, cj, education, math, teaching   |  7 Comments
Tags: elementary school, games, k-12, nim

R.E.M. and Cal Ripken

17Nov11

Dave Daley delivers a great, frank interview with Michael Stipe on R.E.M.’s breakup. I would rather throw myself off a cliff or be boiled in lead than listen to “Life’s Rich Pageant” demos – [and here Stipe groan sings unintelligible syllables as if he is in pain] — my doing this horrible moaning over a [...]

Filed under: baseball, music, nostalgia, orioles   |  1 Comment
Tags: cal ripken, r.e.m., ripken, strained analogies