Lots of Topics

Since several days have elapsed since my last post, I include four topics below.

Topic 1: Steven Strogatz, professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University, is writing several opinion pieces on mathematics for The New York Times.  Why is Dr. Strogatz doing this?  In his first opinion piece "From Fish to Infinity", Dr. Strogatz states, "The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so enthralling to those who get it."  Because I think mathematicians need to do more of this sort of thing, I'm very excited to see this blog appearing in the "Opinionator" section of The New York Times.  In case you'd like to follow along, here's a link: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/steven-strogatz/.  (Since I do not often read The New York Times, I must thank Jay for letting me know about the opinion pieces.)

Topic 2: While traveling to Winston-Salem on Sunday, Jay and I were listening to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, NPR's hour-long quiz program.  During the "Lightning Fill in the Blank" segment, a bit of news about a principal in Arizona caught my attention.  Principal Ron Sterr was suspended after a letter he claims to have written as a joke was accidentally sent home to parents of second graders.  According to The Washington Post, the letter stated, "The math we do is really easy."  It goes on to say, "If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress."  Wow!  Can you imagine getting this letter from a principal about your child?  Although Sterr claims that the letter was written to actually show how idiotic such comments are, parents, of course, had no way of knowing this when they read their letters.  These are the types of comments that lead students to believe that they just can't do math because they aren't smart enough, which is very unfortunate.  Here's a link to the coverage of this story by The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/02/AR2010020202620.html.

Topic 3: After watching Ina Garten roast vegetables several months ago during an episode of Barefoot Contessa, I began roasting carrots.  Soon after that, I started roasting potatoes, and I now roast asparagus, too.  I have found that these vegetables are so tasty when prepared this way, and the roasting is no more difficult than any other cooking method.

Topic 4: Although I did not watch the Super Bowl, one of my friends mentioned that the Google ad Parisian Love was one of the commercials.  Here's a link to the ad: http://www.youtube.com/searchstories.  Although the story definitely is sweet, I really like the video because it accurately shows just how useful Google is.  When I want to answer just about any question, what do I do?  I Google it!  Nearly every time, I find my answer by following a link on the first page of search results.  No matter how much I learn about Google, I remain amazed!

That's all for today!