Category Archives: Popular Press Explorations

Outcome Switching – What Golfers Know

Posted on August 16, 2016 by jrh794

Last Friday a rare event occurred at our golf course.  My foursome all sank long putts for birdies on the second hole.  What a great feeling and I could go on and on in detail but I won’t.  Anyway we get back … Continue reading →

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Summer Reading I

Posted on August 21, 2014 by jrh794

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg is a schizophrenic book.  On the one hand it is an attempt to fulfill the promise of its main title and on the other it is a paean … Continue reading →

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The Secret Life of Integers – Who Knew?

Posted on January 9, 2014 by jrh794

Emily Nussbaum starts her New Yorker review of the TV show, The Walking Dead, this way: “At two hours, a zombie movie provides a bracing shot of nihilism.  Zombies aren’t so much monsters as they are math, after all–seething, surging, … Continue reading →

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Nobody Calls Me Anymore

Posted on April 13, 2012 by jrh794

I am getting fewer and fewer phone calls at my office nowadays.   My telephone number is published on the syllabus and on the class website and I continually urge students to “give me a ring” if they have a … Continue reading →

Posted in Classroom Happenings, Popular Press Explorations, Teaching | 2 Comments

What Good is a College Education

Posted on February 13, 2012 by jrh794

In Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman uses the shorthand descriptors “System 1” and “System 2” to stand for an automatic system of thinking and an effortful system of thinking respectively.  System 1 operates quickly and automatically and is generally … Continue reading →

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Resemblance Heuristics and Bayesian Analysis

Posted on December 5, 2011 by jrh794

I have just started reading Daniel Kahneman’s book  Thinking, Fast and Slow.  In the introduction he gives this example (my précis).   Steve is neat and orderly and good with detail.  Is he more likely to be a farmer or … Continue reading →

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Feedback From the Real World – The fate of the p-value

Posted on February 1, 2011 by jrh794

“Image you are flipping a coin a 1000 times. You get 537 heads. The probability of getting this result or “worse” using a fair coin is one percent.   But you didn’t get 537 or worse, you got exactly 537 heads. … Continue reading →

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Too Good to be True – Math in the Popular Press I

Posted on December 14, 2010 by jrh794

I came across this statement in a  recent Atlantic Monthly.  “Further, if instead of paying a $2,000 mortgage once a month, you pay $1,000 every two weeks, you can pay off a 25-year mortgage five to seven years early!”   This … Continue reading →

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