March 2012
3 posts
“Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a...”
– Charles Reade
February 2012
2 posts
“Mathematics is a process of staring hard enough with enough perseverance at the...”
– Bill Thurston
December 2011
2 posts
“If you think that science is certain—well that’s just an error on your...”
– Richard Feynman
Absolute Certainty Is Not Scientific →
November 2011
3 posts
Good and Bad Procrastination →
You Are Not So Smart: Procrastination →
You must be adept at thinking about thinking to defeat yourself at procrastination. You must realize there is the you who sits there now reading this, and there is a you sometime in the future who will be influenced by a different set of ideas and desires, a you in a different setting where an alternate palette of brain functions will be available for painting reality.
The now you may see...
The Myth of the Innovator Hero →
We like to think that invention comes as a flash of insight, the equivalent of that sudden Archimedean displacement of bath water that occasioned one of the most famous Greek interjections, εὕρηκα. Then the inventor gets to rapidly translating a stunning discovery into a new product. Its mass appeal soon transforms the world, proving once again the power of a single, simple idea.
But this...
October 2011
2 posts
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
– Samuel Beckett
Why do some people learn faster? →
August 2011
2 posts
“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of...”
– Jim Rohn
Math and the Art of M. C. Escher →
The 20th century Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher was a master printmaker, whose works were heavily infused with ideas from mathematics. This textbook is intended to support a mathematics course at the level of college algebra, with topics taken from the mathematics implied by Escher’s artwork.
June 2011
5 posts
We don't JUST need more college graduates... →
Does life online give you a 'popcorn brain?' →
The worry is that life online is giving us what researcher, David Levy, calls “popcorn brain” — a brain so accustomed to the constant stimulation of electronic multitasking that we’re unfit for life offline, where things pop at a much slower pace.
“He who knows nothing doubts nothing”
– Italian proverb
“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
– Albert Einstein
May 2011
5 posts
Anatomy of an A+: A Look Inside the Process of One... →
“One university degree later, and not much has changed. My average stayed between an A and an A+ throughout college, and I still rarely study more than 2-3 hours before an exam.
“For most students, these results are profoundly unfair. I didn’t study harder; I studied less. I wasn’t taught more; in the first example, I hadn’t even taken the class in question.”
Researchers solve ham sandwich mystery →
The ham sandwich theorem has intrigued mathematicians for more than half a century, but research now has tied up some loose ends.
“I used to think the human brain was the most fascinating part of the body, and...”
– Emo Phillips
Free Math Books →
It’s easy to find books online, but most of those books are (likely) there illegally. This, however, is a list of books which are free and legal. Some of them are preprints that authors put online before their book got published; some are scans of old books that are out of copyright; and some of them are lecture notes that various mathematicians have typed up.
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries →
April 2011
3 posts
Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out is a Crucial... →
Even more telling is the discovery that zoning out may be the most fruitful type of mind wandering. In their fMRI study, Schooler and his colleagues found that the default network and executive control systems are even more active during zoning out than they are during the less extreme mind wandering with awareness. When we are no longer even aware that our minds are wandering, we may be...
The blue-eyed islanders →
A nice logic puzzle Terry Tao reposted on his blog.
There is an island upon which a tribe resides. The tribe consists of 1000 people, with various eye colours. Yet, their religion forbids them to know their own eye color, or even to discuss the topic; thus, each resident can (and does) see the eye colors of all other residents, but has no way of discovering his or her own (there are no ...
The secret of self-control →
A history of the marshmallow test and discussion of how the ability to delay gratification is correlated to success later in life.
March 2011
3 posts
“Algebraic Geometry seems to have acquired the reputation of being esoteric,...”
– David Mumford
“God exists since mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exists since we cannot...”
– André Weil
“A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his...”
– G. H. Hardy
January 2011
3 posts
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
– H. L. Mencken
To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test →
December 2010
6 posts
3D Christmas Tree in JavaScript →
Explanation of how a three-dimensional Christmas tree is produced with JavaScript.
Geeks' most beloved holiday classics →
October 2010
1 post
Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic →
A New York Times article describing the software Google has been working on to make cars autonomous.
“Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue. They speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided — more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in the United States in 2008. The engineers say...
September 2010
2 posts
“Chance favors only the prepared mind.”
– Louis Pasteur
Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits →
Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous...
August 2010
4 posts
God's Number is 20 →
It has been shown that any valid Rubik’s cube position can be solved within twenty moves.
Beyond the 10,000 Hour Rule: Richard Hamming and... →
“At the core of getting better is deliberate practice — stretching yourself beyond your current capability. This work is hard and draining, but also necessary. Seek this mental resistance. If you’re not regularly experiencing long stretches of mind-melting hard focus, then you’re wasting your time.”
Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted... →
“Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.”
July 2010
2 posts
“I’ve loved to read all my life. I went to New College of Sarasota,...”
– William Thurston, in the foreword to John Hubbard’s Teichmüller Theory and Applications to Geometry, Topology, and Dynamics
June 2010
2 posts
“Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather...”
– Leonardo da Vinci
Does the Internet Make You Dumber? →
An article from Wired about how the constant distractions of the Internet are making us less able to focus and think deeply.