Math Digest

Summaries of Media Coverage of Math

Edited by Allyn Jackson, AMS
Contributors: Mike Breen (AMS), Claudia Clark (freelance science writer), Lisa DeKeukelaere (2004 AMS Media Fellow), Annette Emerson (AMS), Brie Finegold (University of Arizona), Baldur Hedinsson (Boston University), and Ben Polletta (Drexel University)

2011 Math Digest

December 2011

• Blogs on mathematical sculptures made from office supplies; mathematical images and election fraud; and bubbles
• "Ramanujan's birthday will be National Mathematics Day" and "Manmohan's concern over decline in quality of maths teachers," The Hindu, 27 December 2011
• "On the Six-Cornered Snowflake," Nature, 22/29 December 2011
• Colleges Mine Data to Tailor Students' Experience," Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 December 2011
• Media coverage of study about the "gender gap" in mathematics: Scientific American, MSNBC, Education Week, Daily Mail, Der Spiegel, Huffington Post... January 2012 and December 2011
• "Sir Isaac Newton's own annotated Principia Mathematica goes online," The Guardian, 11 December 2011
• "A food pyramid made of cookies," Boston Globe, 11 December 2011
• "Key mathematical tool sees first advance in 24 years," New Scientist, 9 December 2001
• "Mandelbrot Beats Economics in Fathoming Markets: Mark Buchanan," Bloomberg Business Week, 6 December 2011
• "Good Morning. You’re Nobel Laureates," New York Times, 4 December 2011
• "Math on New Scientist TV, Various dates
• "Fluid Dynamics in a Cup," Scientific American, December 2011

November 2011

• Blogs on Math Craft Monday and on math and art in Paris
• "How Algorithms Shape Our World, a TEDTalk by Kevin Slavin, Huffington Post, 30 November 2011
• "The Search For Analysts To Make Sense Of 'Big Data'," National Public Radio, 30 November 2011
• "Setting the record straight about Jewish mathematicians in Nazi Germany," Haaretz.com, 25 November 2011
• "Professors of the Year are Awarded for honing their teaching skills," Chronicle of Higher Education, 25 November 2011
• "Herbert Hauptman (1917-2011)," Nature, 17 November 2011
• "So Crazy It Just Might Work," an interview with Paul Hoffman, This American Life (Public Radio International), 11 November 2011
• "When There Are Too Many Ants, Try Basketball," News of the Week, Science, 11 November 2011
• "New Discoveries About Knots Boost Mathematicians' Case for Studying Them," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 November 2011
• "Only a Mathematician Could Love the World's Ugliest Music," Gizmodo.com, 6 November 2011
• "Moneyball U," New York Times Education Life, 6 November 2011
• "It's more than just mathematics," The Hindu, 5 November 2011
• "This Professor Can 'Spit a 16' and Then Find Its Square Root," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 November 2011
• "Jumping Rope by the Numbers,"Science Now, 2 November 2011;
  "Solved: The Aerodynamics of Super-Fast Jump Ropes," Wired Science, 2 November 2011
• "Test scores show modest gains in mathematics," CNN, 1 November 2011
• "An Adventure in the Nth Dimension," American Scientist, November-December 2011
• "This Man Could Rule the World," Popular Science, November 2011

October 2011

• Blogs on historic female mathematicians and on music and math
• "David Lynch adds art to maths," The Telegraph, 29 October 2011
  "Mathematics: Drowning by numbers," Nature, 15 December 2011
• "Q&A: Persi Diaconis The mathemagician," Nature, 27 October 2011
  "The Magical Mind of Persi Diaconis," Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 October 2011
• "Mathematicians think of everything as rubber," Science News, 22 October 2011
• "String theory finds a bench mate," Nature, 20 October 2011
• "Using Math To Piece Together a Lost Treasure," Spiegel International, 19 October 2011
• Articles on record-setting calculation of Pi
• "The Telltale Tiles," The Age, 17 October 2011
• "Finding Archimedes in the Shadows," New York Times, 17 October 2011;
  "Survival of the Palimpsest," Science, 14 October 2011
• "Super Science Suggestions: House Panel Lays Out Spending Preferences," Science, 17 October 2011
• Articles on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Daniel Shechtman
• "Don't get math? Researchers home in on the brain's problem", Medical Xpress.com, 5 October 2011
• "Ig Nobel prize awards 2011," New Scientist, 3 October 2011
• "It's just an illusion: Mathematician uses thousands of Lego bricks to recreate Escher's gravity-defying images," Guardian, 2 October 2011
• "A formula for justice," Daily Mail, 2 October 2011
• "Popular Science's Brilliant 10: Computational Contortionist," Popular Science, October 2011

September 2011

• Blogs on Phi and on Gender
• Media coverage of two mathematicians winning the 2011 National Medal of Science
• "Statisticians find new way to see the forest for the trees," R&D Magazine, 27 September 2011
• "Quant trading: How mathematicians rule the markets," BBC News, 25 September 2011
• "Review: Moneyball Movie Unites Jocks and Nerds Through Math," Wired, 23 September 2011
• "Mathematicians warn of damage to the UK economy from maths funding cuts, The Guardian, 20 September 2011
• "Citation by Citation, New Maps Chart Hot Research and Scholarship's Hidden Terrain," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 September 2011
• "How Google Grew Into An Online Goliath," NPR's Science Friday, 16 September 2011
• "Logan motorcyclist thanks rescuers: 'They saved my life'," The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 September 2011
• "Forever 21 Pulls 'Allergic to Algebra' T-Shirt After Critics Cry Foul," Time NewsFeed, 13 September 2011;
  "Empowering girls, one T-shirt at a time," The Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 September 2011
• "Commemorative Calculus: How an Algorithm Helped Arrange the Names on the 9/11 Memorial," Scientific American, 7 September 2011
• ""Quantum minds: Why we think like quarks," New Scientist, 5 September 2011

August 2011

• Blogs on "The Code," a BBC television series, and on Mathematics ability
• "Math expert finds order in disorder, including stock market," San Diego Tribune, 28 August 2011
• "The Trouble With Trillions," National Public Radio, 22 August 2011
• Articles on math and the lottery:
  "Lottery wins come easy, if you can spot the loopholes," New Scientist, 19 August;
  "Lucky or genius? Woman wins lottery four times," The Telegraph (Australia), 12 August 2011
• "Big Boost for Modern Einsteins," Wall Street Journal, 18 August 2011
• Media coverage of Pierre de Fermat's 410^th birthday, 17 August 2011
• Four articles on math and sports:
  "UI professor uses mathematics to help design fantasy football app for draft picks," The Gazette, 17 August 2011;
  "An R.B.I. Leader, but Not an Elite Hitter," The New York Times, 14 August 2011;
  "The Mathematics of Basketball," Science NOW, 2 August 2011;
  "Better putting with geometry," by Devin Powell. Science News, 16 July 2011.
• "How Fibonacci Introduced The World To Numbers," National Public Radio, Science Friday, 12 August 2011
• "Explainer: the point of pure mathematics," The Conversation, 2 August 2011
• "Ultimate logic: To infinity and beyond," New Scientist, 1 August 2011
• "Why Math Works," Scientific American, August 2011

June-July

• Blogs: Degrees of Freedom, Mathbabe Catherine O'Neil, and Blogs about "Math" Days
• "The enduring myth of music and maths," The Independent, 6 July 2011
• "Maths powers Google bid strategy," BBC News, 4 July 2011
• "More than sum of its parts": Review of The Man of Numbers by Keith Devlin, Cosmic Numbers by James D. Stein, and The Mathematics of Life by Ian Stewart, The Boston Globe, 3 July 2011
• "'Tau day' marked with opponents of maths constant pi," BBC News, 28 June 2011
• "Africa AIMS high," Nature, 30 June 2011
• "Listen by numbers: music and maths," Guardian, 27 June 2011
• "Mathematics Teachers' Subtle, Complex Disciplinary Knowledge," Science, 24 June 2011
• "Knot theory', Osaka University, bring mathematical knowledge to a new game, (in Japanese) " Asahi Shimbun, 17 June 2011
• "'Origami Engineer' Flexes to Create Stronger, More Agile Materials," Science, 17 June 2011
• "Exhibits add mirth to math,"msnbc.com, 13 June 2011
  "One Math Museum, Many Variables," The New York Times, 27 June 2011
• "Preparing Future Math Teachers," Science, 10 June 2011
• "Unzipping Zipf's Law," Nature, 9 June 2011
• "Mathematician's newly discovered letters to be digitised at UCC," Irish Times, 2 June 2011
• "Game theory study says GPO fees don't hurt hospitals," DOTmed News, 2 June 2011
• "These are the biggest numbers in the universe," io9.com, 1 June 2011

May

• Blogs: PhD + epsilon, Evolutionblog, and Notes & Theories Blog
• "The Secret Sharer," The New Yorker, 23 May 2011
• "Amazonian Children Understand 'Universal' Geometry Regardless of Schooling," Bloomberg News, 23 May 2011
• "A rectangle, some spheres and lots of triangles," The Age, 23 May 2011
• "Salman Khan: The Messiah of Math," Bloomberg Businessweek, 19 May 2011
• "Guest commentary: The mathematics of golf," Las Cruces Sun-News, 19 May 2011
• "Latest Issue on the Ballot: How to Hold a Vote," Wall Street Journal, 14 May 2011
• "Steven Orszag, Pioneer in Fluid Dynamics Study, Dies at 68," New York Times, 7 May 2011
• "Spiral symmetry is turning heads," Science News, 7 May 2011
• "Cells can chart efficient course from A to Z," Science News, 7 May 2011
• "IBM celebrates tech behind first U.S. manned space flight," ComputerWorld, 6 May 2011
• "The Mathematician as an Explorer," Scientific American, 4 May 2011
• "Will maths kill the rhino?" The Age, 2 May 2011
• "Bit Lit," American Scientist, May-June 2011
• "Why Bayes Rules," Scientific American, May 2011
• "The Strangest Numbers in String Theory," Scientific American, May 2011
• "Quasirandom ramblings," American Scientist, May-June 2011

April

• Blogs: dan: less helpful and Observations from Scientific American
• "Q&A: Taking Mathematics to Heart," Science, 29 April 2011
• "Grigori Perelman claims he can control Universe." Pravda, 28 April 2011
• "Tattoo formula uses mathematics to forecast ageing of body art," Guardian, 28 April 2011
• "Colorado's Mesa State College gets new name, with help of math diagram," The Denver Post, 27 April 2011
• "More Megaquakes on the Way? That Depends on Your Statistics," Science, 22 April 2011
• "Top mathematician chooses to live a modest life away from the limelight," BBC News-Europe, 18 April 2011
• "Using Math To Make Complex Systems Simple," Weekend Edition, NPR, 16 April 2011
• "This Tech Bubble Is Different," Bloomberg Businessweek, 14 April 2011
• "Math Day," WCTV, 14 April 2011
• "SD teacher joins national push to improve math," San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 April 2011
• "P&G Passes On Pringles," NBC Nightly News, 6 April 2011
• "Making Math Connections," Education Week, 4 April 2011
• "What are the odds? A mathematical look at bowling," The Advertiser-Tribune, 3 April 2011

March

• Blogs: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Operations Research" and "Sierpinski Triangle Talk and Sierpinskitaschen"
• "Brown professor's love of math just multiplied," The Providence Journal, 28 March 2011
• Stories on John Milnor winning the 2011 Abel Prize
• "Mathematical Budding Model Revealed in a Lily," Discovery News, 22 March 2011
• "The man and his math," The Hindu, 22 March 2011
• "The mathematics of being nice: Interview with Martin Nowak," New Scientist, 21 March 2011
• Articles on Evan O' Dorney winning the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search
• Stories on Pi Day (3-14)
• "Pythagorean Theorem: There's More To This Equation," All Things Considered, 9 March 2011
  "Mass. couple shapes new attitudes in math," Daily Hampshire Gazette, 10 April 2011
• "Research center inaugurated at Brown," The Providence Journal, 8 March 2011
• "Pythagoras's Theorem ain't Pythagoras's," The Age, 7 March 2011
• "A formula for success," The Hindu, 4 March 2011
• "Computing Pioneer's Papers To Stay in Public Collection." Science, 4 March 2011
• "Fractals, Chaos, and Pollock's Code," The Sag Harbor Express, 4 March 2011
• "Maximum Overhang, Optimum Reward," R & D Magazine, 3 March 2011

February

• Blogs: Summaries of The Unapologetic Mathematician and Fano Varieties and Extremal Laurent Polynomials
• "Why a Former Hedge Funder Is Building a Museum for Math," Fast Company, 28 February 2011
  "Making Math Fun (Seriously)," The Wall Street Journal, 9 March 2011
• "A new dimension for mathematics--the Periodic Table of shapes," Gizmag, 16 February 2011
  "Elementary Mathematics," Science, 25 February 2011
• "Maths mavens cut to the core," The Age, February 14, 2011
• "Uncovering treasures of the past," KNDO/KNDU TV, 13 February 2011
• "Much Ado About Zero," North Coast Journal, 10 February 2011
• "Making Stuff: Smarter," NOVA, PBS.org, 9 February 2011
• "Sizing Up Crowds Pushes Limits of Technology," Wall Street Journal, 5 February 2011
• "The house that math built," The Toronto Star, 4 February 2011

January

• Blogs: Bit-Player: An amateur's outlook on computing and mathematics and Vi Hart's Blog
• Coverage of two results concerning the partition function
• Articles on a resolved conjecture in enumerative combinatorics
• "Ancient puzzle gets new lease of 'geomagical' life," New Scientist, 24 January 2011
• "ESP Paper Rekindles Discussion About Statistics," Science, 21 January 2011
• "Bending and Stretching Classroom Lessons to Make Math Inspire," The New York Times, 18 January 2011
• "Santa Cruz police first in nation to try Santa Clara University model to predict crime," Mercury News, 14 January 2011
  "The Santa Cruz Experiment," Popular Science, November 2011
• "An equation for friendship," Los Angeles Times, 14 January 2011
• "Mathematics-Inspired Dance Work Makes World Premiere at Staller," ThreeVillagePatch, 11 January 2011
• "The Statistical Turn in Literary Studies," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 January 2011
• "Make way for mathematical matter," New Scientist, 5 January 2011
• "Animal Instincts," Scientific American, January 2011
• "Year in Science 2010," Discover, January/February 2011

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