Category Archives: links

Introduction to Mathematical Thinking

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Brent

Keith Devlin is going to be offering another instance of his online course, Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, starting on March 4. The idea is to serve as a bridge between high school mathematics— which focuses on solving specific types of … Continue reading →

Posted in links, teaching | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A computer-checked proof of the odd order theorem

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Brent

Big news: a proof of the Feit-Thompson Theorem (also known as the “odd order theorem”) has been completely formalized and verified by a computer, using the Coq proof assistant! Wait, what? Huh? you’re probably thinking. Well, let me unpack that … Continue reading →

Posted in algebra, links, programming, proof | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

More factorization diagrams

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Brent

My post on factorization diagrams from a month ago turned out to be (unexpectedly) quite popular! I got ten times as many hits as usual the day it was published, and since then quite a few other people have created … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, links, pictures, primes, programming, recursion | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

Making a computer out of… dominoes?

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Brent

When I mentioned carrying out computational processes with a room full of dominoes, I wasn’t kidding. Matt Parker is planning to build a domino computer at the Manchester Science Festival at the end of the month. The Manchester Science Festival … Continue reading →

Posted in computation, links, video | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

CoM and Relatively Prime

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Brent

A couple things to draw your attention to: The 90th Carnival of Mathematics is up over at Walking Randomly. There’s quite a lot of cool stuff in this edition, go check it out! The first episode of Relatively Prime is … Continue reading →

Posted in links | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Introduction to Mathematical Thinking with Keith Devlin

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Brent

I just learned from Denise at Let’s Play Math! that Keith Devlin is going to be teaching a course on Coursera called Introduction to Mathematical Thinking. It’s free and open to anyone with only a background in high school math. … Continue reading →

Posted in links, teaching | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Searchable tiling database

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Brent

Just a link today—check out this awesome tiling database! It’s got tons of beautiful plane tilings (with information and further reading about each one) and many ways to search through the database. It’s a great way to find examples of … Continue reading →

Posted in geometry, group theory, links, pattern, pictures | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Picture this

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Brent

Picture this! is a very cool interactive thingy, made by Jason Davies, intended to get students (or anyone, really) thinking about some interesting math. Go play around with it and see if you can answer any of the listed questions … Continue reading →

Posted in challenges, links, pattern, pictures | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Wythoff’s game at Three-Cornered Things

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Brent

I’ve really been enjoying Zachary Abel’s series of posts on Wythoff’s game [Wythoff’s Game: Red or Blue?; A Golden Observation; The “Fibonacci”est String; Wythoff’s Formula], over on his blog Three-Cornered Things. The Fibonacci numbers show up in the strangest places! … Continue reading →

Posted in fibonacci, games, links | Tagged | 7 Comments

Nature by Numbers

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Brent

This has been making the rounds of the math blogosphere (blathosphere?), but in case you haven’t seen it yet, check out Cristóbal Vila’s awesome short video, Nature by Numbers. Especially appropriate given that I have been writing about Fibonacci numbers … Continue reading →

Posted in fibonacci, golden ratio, links, video | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment