NEWSLETTER

 August 2019

What's new in the world of math and education this month?

Not many non-mathematicians would call Mathematics beautiful, despite it being quite so. They would, however, have no difficulty in saying that mathematics can be used to create beauty. It is unfortunate that so many cannot see that which makes the beauty of art is itself intrinsically beautiful. 

Mathematics And Beauty

Study Shows We Like Our Math Like We Like Our Art: Beautiful 

Coauthored by a Yale mathematician and a University of Bath psychologist, the study shows that average Americans can assess mathematical arguments for beauty just as they can pieces of art or music. The beauty they discerned about the math was not one-dimensional either: Using nine criteria for beauty—such as elegance, intricacy, universality, etc.—300 individuals had better-than-chance agreement about the specific ways that four different proofs were beautiful.

 
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Math And Art

Mathematical Framework Turns Any Sheet of Material Into Any Shape Using Kirigami Cuts

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a mathematical framework that can turn any sheet of material into any prescribed shape, inspired by the paper craft termed kirigami (from the Japanese, kiri, meaning to cut and kami, meaning paper).Unlike its better-known cousin origami, which uses folds to shape paper, kirigami relies on a pattern of cuts in a flat paper sheet to change its flexibility and allow it to morph into 3-D shapes. Artists have long used this artform to create everything from pop-up cards to castles and dragons.

 
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Monthly Mind-Bending Math Video

What is fair? It can be a very difficult question to answer. An equitable division of assets hinges on the meaning of "equitable" you choose to use. For example, how to divide a stollen necklace among thieves.  

Math News

New Proof Settles How to Approximate Numbers Like Pi 

The deep recesses of the number line are not as forbidding as they might seem. That’s one consequence of a major new proof about how complicated numbers yield to simple approximations.The proof resolves a nearly 80-year-old problem known as the Duffin-Schaeffer conjecture. In doing so, it provides a final answer to a question that has preoccupied mathematicians since ancient times: Under what circumstances is it possible to represent irrational numbers that go on forever — like pi — with simple fractions, like 22/7? The proof establishes that the answer to this very general question turns on the outcome of a single calculation.

 
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Education Research

Study Shows Power of Refocusing Student Stress in Middle School Transition

A new study by education researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that proactively addressing students' anxieties with clear and cost-effective messaging early in the school year can lead to a lasting record of higher grades, better attendance, and fewer behavioral problems for sixth graders embarking on their stressful first year of middle school.

 
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