Things You Could (Have) Do(ne) Over Break #4: Mathematics Edition

~On the myth of a gender gap in mathematical ability (Gawker)

~The math and cost of pennies (xkcd.com)

~Statistics and some (devastating/common) fallacies of probability–very accessible and interesting (Salon); or learn about Bayes and his famous theorem (farnamstreetblog);

~What do you know about infinity? Did you know there are different infinities? There are different infinities (Plus.maths.org and NYT)

~Check out the mathematics of sport (note the great set of links if you have interest in a particular sport) (sabermetric research);

~This one has infinity in the title, but it’s about a person teaching math in prison (Prospect)

~Check out the world’s fastest number game; can you correctly sum 15 numbers shown to you in 1.85 seconds? If so you wouldn’t have won this year’s championship; I’m not sure if the video makes it more or less believable (Guardian)

~More about history and society than Math proper, it’s fascinating anyway–“A look at anti-Semitic university admissions in the USSR from the perspective of a leading mathematician” (New Criterion)

~Another history lesson–this time on Emmy Noether, “the most most significant mathematician you’ve never heard of” (NYT)

~Teach yourself logic or at least gather some info about resources for doing so (Logic Matters)

~Read about the excitement about a possible proof of the deep connection between primes–“The usually quiet world of mathematics is abuzz with a claim that one of the most important problems in number theory has been solved. Mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University in Japan has released a 500-page proof of the abc conjecture, which proposes a relationship between whole numbers — a ‘Diophantine’ problem”

~Learn why Base 12 is better, if Art DiVito didn’t make it clear to you already (Guardian)

~Fractals materialized (NYT); or read about the “father of fractals” (WSJ)

~Math-phobic parenting (WSJ, via Jen Asimow’s Math At Home Blog)

~Eleven ways shoppers go wrong in their math (Atlantic)