We do math in order to understand what has happened and what is happening, and one reason we want to understand those things is so we can make good guesses about what’s going to happen.
I’m Jordan Ellenberg, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I study number theory, algebraic geometry and topology, which basically means I study very old questions about numbers using very new methods developed in the last few decades. I’m also a writer; I’ve written articles about math for Slate, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, and a bunch of other publications… plus two books. The most recent, How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, is about the ways mathematics is wrapped up with everything we do and think about, from elections to poems to religious reveries to Supreme Court decisions to baseball games.
Here are a few things I’ve written lately:
The war on gerrymandering, and how math is fighting on both sides: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/sunday/computers-gerrymandering-wisconsin.html
Are we paying too much attention to child math prodigies? https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wrong-way-to-treat-child-geniuses-1401484790
The amazing, autotuning sandpile: http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/the-amazing-autotuning-sandpile
I’m featured in NOVA’s latest episode, “Prediction by the Numbers,” which asks what math can and can't tell us about the future. The show is now available for streaming online. I’m here now to take questions about the math on the show, or anything else mathematical you want to talk about!
No comments:
Post a Comment