Integrrl

The Research Series: Pocket Notebook packs of 4 for field notes. 

here are the sources for all the numbers I gave.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Theorems:

1. The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus

2. The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra

3. The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic

and probably a few others.

Astronomers detect an interstellar visitor for the first time.

On October 19, researchers at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy caught sight of our first ever visitor from outside our solar system. It wasn’t an alien spacecraft, but it was interstellar—a piece of space rock speeding through like a stranger through town. And unlike our own meteorites, which orbit our sun, this object, named A/2017 U1, is a one-time visitor. Meenakshi Wadhwa, director of the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University, joins Ira to discuss how this object could come from a far-off star system and what scientists could have learned while it was here. Listen here to learn more.

In a recent gerrymandering case, Supreme Court justices wrestle with basic math.

Last month the Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments for a case concerning gerrymandering in the state of Wisconsin. The democratic plaintiffs proposed a simple metric for determining whether the boundaries of a district had been fairly drawn. It’s called the “efficiency gap.” To calculate it, you take the difference between each party’s “wasted” votes—votes for losing candidates and votes for winning candidates beyond what the candidate needed to win—and divide that by the total number of votes cast. Simple arithmetic.

Not according to the justices. Justice John Roberts called the formula “sociological gobbledygook.” Justice Neil Gorsuch compared the metric to his steak rub recipe: “I like some turmeric, I like a few other little ingredients, but I’m not going to tell you how much of each. And so what’s this court supposed to do? A pinch of this, a pinch of that?” Even Justice Breyer, who is expected to vote with the court’s liberal bloc, generalized the details of the plaintiffs argument as all that “computer stuff.”

So is it possible that these Ivy League-educated Supreme Court justices really don’t understand the math of this case? Oliver Roeder, senior writer for FiveThirtyEight joins Ira to discuss whether the Supreme Court is allergic to math, and what that means for future cases. And Moon Duchin, associate professor of mathematics at Tufts University, discusses the best math to use for rooting out gerrymandering. Listen here.

Supreme Court: Is this witchcraft??

Regardless of your major, statistics classes can really give you a boost in the job market. If you’ve already graduated, there are plenty of online courses available, too! 

“We’re rapidly entered a world where everything can be monitored and measured,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Digital Business. “But the big problem is going to be the ability of humans to use, analyze and make sense of the data. “

Analysis is the closest to my branch of math, and I am pretty good at sweeping and vacuuming, if I do say so myself!

Three mathematicians give us a peek into their abstract and beautiful world.

We’ve all heard about CRISPR, the groundbreaking gene-editing tool, or LIGO and gravitational waves, the latest frontier in astronomy. But what about the cutting-edge research in math?

Ask anyone what a scientist looks like and expect the cliched answer: someone in a lab coat, looking at a specimen under a microscope. But what does a mathematician look like? How do they do research? What does it even take to be a mathematician in the first place?