A cylindrical silo in South Dakota, perhaps the basis of a related rates problem in calculus. Image: flickr user Lars Plougmann
“Facing a streetlight under batty moths
And June bugs racheting like broken clock springs,
I stand, for the sake of a problem, on the curb—
Neither in grass nor gutter—while those wings
Switch down the light an [...]
Monthly archives for June, 2013
The Poetry of Calculus
A cylindrical silo in South Dakota, perhaps the basis of a related rates problem in calculus. Image: flickr user Lars Plougmann
“Facing a streetlight under batty moths
And June bugs racheting like broken clock springs,
I stand, for the sake of a problem, on the curb—
Neither in grass nor gutter—while those wings
Switch down the light an [...]
Mathematicians Predict What’s i...
It’s all about the Washingtons. And that smiley face button. Image: flickr user xJason.Rogersx
When I go to Europe, my pockets rapidly fill up with change. In addition to language barriers that prevent me from quickly understanding how much I owe, I have trouble dealing with the unfamiliar coin denominations. The best way to make 75 cen [...]
A Conversation with Laura DeMarco and...
An image created in the course of Laura DeMarco’s dynamical systems research. Image: Laura DeMarco.
I talked with mathematicians Laura DeMarco and Amie Wilkinson about how they got interested in math, the importance of female role models for young women in math, and their advice for aspiring mathematicians. You can read my interview wit [...]
Cosmic Focus
Jennifer Siegal-Gaskins, astrophysicist. Image: Harvard University.
“On a clear night, it can be overwhelming to look up and see the billions of stars in our galaxy, but Jennifer Siegal-Gaskins thinks about what we can’t see. ‘About 80 percent of all the matter in the universe is totally different from the stuff we’re [...]
Celebrating the Grandmothers of STEM
Astrophysicist Carol Jo Crannell, mathematician Annalisa Crannell, and Iolanthe Good, three generations of women who love STEM. Image: Ximena Catepillan.
In honor of my grandmother’s birthday last Thursday, I wrote about Grandma Got STEM, a blog that collects stories of older women in science careers.
Some have had illustrious careers a [...]
My Head is Not a Hairy Ball
I got a haircut, and it got me thinking about the hairy ball theorem from algebraic topology, which believe it or not is about vectors and cowlicks. Sadly, my head does not satisfy the hypotheses of the hairy ball theorem, so my cowlicks are not made of math.
Not a hairy ball.
According to my 9th grade biology teacher, the lining of my digest [...]
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