The special Mathematics issue (vol. 16, no. 4) of the magazine (the Annals of Improbable Research) is now online. The pleasing-paper version was mailed to subscribers a while ago. Click on the magazine cover (below) to download a free PDF, or buy a high-quality PDF. Or subscribe to the paper version. Mel (right) says it’s […]
Tag: math
Math: “Frustratingly easy” (2)
“Frustratingly Easy Semi-supervised Domain Adaptation” is not the first mathematics paper that explicitly concentrates on the notion of being frustratingly easy. Fans of the genre speak, occasionally, of the earlier study “Frustratingly Easy Domain Adaptation,” by Hal Daume III, arXiv:0907.1815v1.
Sheet-wrinkle Ig winner profiled
Ig Nobel Prize-winner L. Mahadevan (who studied how sheets become wrinkled) is profiled in the Times of India: …just another feather in Mahadevan’s cap. He has received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2009 and in 2007, he won the Ig-Nobel prize which is awarded for fun, outrageous or amusing innovations. “It’s nothing to be proud […]
So simple that only a child can do it…
A new study reaffirms the Tom Lehrer song that mathematics, as presented by professionals, is “so very simple that only a child can do it.” The study is “What Do Transitive Inference and Class Inclusion Have in Common? Categorical (Co)Products and Cognitive Development,” published in the December 2009 issue of PLoS Computational Biology. The authors […]