Mathematical concept + thriller plot = cinema gold. Everyone knows the formula.
This time, it’s the turn of the Möbius strip.
(this trailer is possibly not safe for work)
[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhUk6ifllVM]
You're reading: News
- The first edition of the IMA’s new journal Information and Inference (announced previously) came out last December, and everything’s free to read for two years. In other temporarily un-unfree research news, T&F have sent out another one of their inimitable PDF posters announcing that they have generously made four articles from the journal PRIMUS (Problems, Resources, and Issues in Undergraduate Mathematics) “free to access” for an unspecified period of time. Meanwhile, reading any other individual article will still cost you $27.50. Because that’s how much value they’ve added. Definitely. Please excuse me, I’m having trouble expressing enthusiasm.
- The Sirovich family, apparently a very wealthy family, has committed $2.5 million to establishing a “Professorship of Mathematics for the Arts” at Pratt Institute. (via The Aperiodical’s own Colm Mulcahy on Twitter)
- Robert Ghrist, a maths professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is running a MOOC on Coursera titled “Calculus: Single Variable“.
Calculus is one of the grandest achievements of human thought, explaining everything from planetary orbits to the optimal size of a city to the periodicity of a heartbeat. This brisk course covers the core ideas of single-variable Calculus with emphases on conceptual understanding and applications. The course is ideal for students beginning in the engineering, physical, and social sciences.
I thought we’d written about Ghrist before, but it seems we haven’t. Dude keeps popping up all over the place, so keep an eye out. (via Steven Strogatz on Twitter)
- An AUD 14 million scheme to fast-track bankers, engineers and so on into jobs teaching maths and science has only recruited 14 participants.
Making sense of all the recent reports on the state of mathematics education
You may be aware of seemingly endless reports in recent years on the state of mathematics education in England. Marie Joubert says that at least 28 such reports have been published since the beginning of 2011. Now Marie is hoping to “‘draw on the wisdom of the mathematics education crowds’ to develop a shared understanding of what the emerging big messages from these reports are”.
English/Asian mathematics education comparison: what the IoE report actually says
According to a report by the University of London’s Institute of Education, the very best 10-year-old English students are as good at maths as their counterparts around the world, but have fallen behind by around two years by the time they reach their GCSEs.
Cue frothy-mouthed calls for more rigour and tougher exams, presumably since you can’t string people up for not being good at maths, even if it is the only language they understand. Cue also a great deal of “it’s all their fault” finger-pointing and insulting generalisations of the “of course, those Asians value study more highly” variety.
LMS 150 Year Impact Assessment
The London Mathematical Society will be 150 years old in a couple of years, and we mathematicians always bang on about how maths takes a long time to have impact in the wider world, so they’re asking for examples of maths done in the last 150 years that’s had an impact outside academia.
Read more about it at the start of the February newsletter (PDF), or email John Greenlees at Sheffield if you’ve got any ideas. Thinking up suitable examples might be a good way of taking your mind off the REF, if you’re currently grappling with that particular fractal of bad ideas.
Competition to visualise open government data
Who loves data? If we’re talking about the android from Star Trek: TNG, then I do, and if we’re talking about the thing that’s not the plural of anecdotes, then I’m pretty sure the answer is everyone.
If you love data, then you’ll definitely love visualising data, and Google have teamed up with the Open Knowledge Foundation to launch a data-visualising competition. Nobody has more data than… well, Google, but second in that race is Governments, and the world’s governments are releasing a massive shedload of open data for people to play with.
Not mentioned on The Aperiodical last week – Un-un-free research, MOOCs and cash for arty maths
Yikes! Even with our hard-working new team of News Team news teamsters chopping away at it admirably, our news queue has grown faster than we can deal with. That means it’s time for another bullet list of news!
Applied game theory: Students boycott exam and all get an A
A piece on the New York Times Economix blog casts a story from Inside Higher Ed as a piece of applied game theory. Professor Peter Fröhlich of Johns Hopkins University has a grading system in which
each class’s highest grade on the final counts as an A, with all other scores adjusted accordingly. So if a midterm is worth 40 points, and the highest actual score is 36 points, “that person gets 100 percent and everybody else gets a percentage relative to it,” said Fröhlich.
Can you spot the problem? The Economix posts points out that this allows “at least two Bayesian Nash equilibria”:
Equilibrium #1 is that no one takes the test, and equilibrium #2 is that everyone takes the test. Both equilibria depend on what all the students believe their peers will do.
In equilibrium #1, everyone scores the same mark – zero – and the calibrated marking scheme maps this onto 100%. The students, realising this, arranged a complete boycott and were all awarded grade A.
Alas, this was not a game theory class! Prof Fröhlich has since changed his grading scheme.
Further information:
Dangerous Curves (Inside Higher Ed) has some detail of how the boycott was arranged (had just one taken the test, all would have been forced to follow suit).
Gaming the System (Economix) discusses the related game theory and economics concepts.