Month: September 2026

Guest Post: Ed Barbeau – Exercises that Schmeck

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September 29, 2026

9:35 am

25 Comments on Guest Post: Ed Barbeau – Exercises that Schmeck

Guests

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Ed Barbeau took up my recent offer for readers to write something for the blog, and has contributed the following, typically excellent, article. 

 

EXERCISES THAT SCHMECK

Whatever your approach to mathematical pedagogy in the schools, it appears that the pupils have to work through a lot of sludge. At the end of a section in a textbook, they might be faced with a large number of similar low level exercises that are essentially rote and restricted in their application. Continue reading “Guest Post: Ed Barbeau – Exercises that Schmeck” →

Travelling Salesmen, Part 2

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September 27, 2026

11:37 pm

2 Comments on Travelling Salesmen, Part 2

Libraries

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A month or so ago, I had a meandering post about Burkard’s and my troubadour travels: Travelling Salesmen, Rainbow and the Value of Idiotic Effort. The post was, in part, about the value of rolling the dice, of meeting people about whom one knows next to nothing. When writing the post I had in mind a lovely person I had met in such a manner through the blog, earlier this year. We then happened to meet again soon after the Rainbow post, when she good-naturedly accused me of “clickbait”: she is an undergraduate, had just heard about the travelling salesman problem and felt short-changed by the absence of the problem in the post. So, to make minor amends, and without attempting to deny that  pretty much all my titles are clickbait, here is a follow-up post with a little travelling salesman in it.

Continue reading “Travelling Salesmen, Part 2” →

On Some Π-Hedral Surfaces in Quasi-Quasi Space

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September 24, 2026

6:00 pm

4 Comments on On Some Π-Hedral Surfaces in Quasi-Quasi Space

Humour

When I was an undergraduate, the Department library had a pinboard, displaying the standard kind of random maths snippets. There were two that I remember, and have pondered on and off about the origins (which were not clear, even at the time). One snippet was a couple paragraphs from a novel, with a plane crashed in the desert or something. The survivors didn’t know which way to walk for the safety of Town X, and it was remarked by one of them that if they just chose a direction at random they would have one chance in 360 of getting to safety. (It sounds a little like Flight of the Phoenix, and I think someone told me that the 1/360 thing did also occur in a movie, but I don’t think it occurs in that movie.)   Continue reading “On Some Π-Hedral Surfaces in Quasi-Quasi Space” →

RatS 29: Matt Taibbi – On Escaping This Horrible Era

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September 23, 2026

4:09 pm

2 Comments on RatS 29: Matt Taibbi – On Escaping This Horrible Era

RatS

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We haven’t had a RatS for a long time, and I’d basically given them up. A couple weeks ago, however, Matt Taibbi wrote a plaintive howl, which seems well worth sharing. Taibbi is one of only two writers/organisations that I pay to read, and one very few writers consistently principled, willing to write what he knows and only what he knows, and without ever seeking to play into tribalism. Taibbi’s howl-post is on the Trump-binary perversion of journalism. The post is public, and Taibbi of course encourages the sharing of his public posts. I hope, therefore, it is not overstepping the bounds to reproduce the post here: Taibbi is great, and people should subscribe to Taibbi’s Racket News. Continue reading “RatS 29: Matt Taibbi – On Escaping This Horrible Era” →

Curriculum Review in Another Land of Ire

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September 21, 2026

10:45 pm

20 Comments on Curriculum Review in Another Land of Ire

curricula

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A few weeks ago, we stumbled upon a story: an academic in Ireland resigned from a school mathematics curriculum review committee because she had insufficient faith that the committee was properly concerned for mathematics or properly respectful of mathematical expertise. So, yes, we stumbled upon the same story that we keep stumbling upon, time and again, just in a new country. Continue reading “Curriculum Review in Another Land of Ire” →

WitCH 156: Dissatisfaction Guaranteed

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September 19, 2026

11:14 pm

31 Comments on WitCH 156: Dissatisfaction Guaranteed

WitCH

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We were alerted to this one by Simon the Likeable. It is a question from the QCAA 2025 Mathematical Methods Paper 2, together with the marking guide. (It may more properly be a PoSWW, but every time someone throws one of these stats questions at me, my brain tries to flee my body and so I can never properly judge.)

Continue reading “WitCH 156: Dissatisfaction Guaranteed” →

A Non-Post on AI and Mathematics Research

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September 14, 2026

6:04 am

16 Comments on A Non-Post on AI and Mathematics Research

AI

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So much crap, and non-crap, so little time. I have a half-dozen posts that had to be done last week but have been so busy acting locally, and being sick, that I have had no time or energy to post on my global thoughts. This one is a quick placeholder, albeit it may be holding a place for nothing.

I have been paying attention to the AI and mathematics thing, of course, and people have been throwing articles at me. I had been reluctant to write anything about it while feeling some obligation to do so, since I am fully aware that people do not know what to think about things until I weigh in. It is a heavy burden I bear. Continue reading “A Non-Post on AI and Mathematics Research” →

PoSWW 60: The Fundamental Delirium of Calculus

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September 6, 2026

9:17 am

21 Comments on PoSWW 60: The Fundamental Delirium of Calculus

PoSWW

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As flagged in a recent post, Western Australia’s SCSA is undertaking a review of and public consultation on the syllabi for two of their senior mathematics courses: Mathematics Methods and Mathematics Applications. The draft syllabi, prepared by a “working party” of unknown but we-can-take-a-very-good-guess constitution, are available here. Continue reading “PoSWW 60: The Fundamental Delirium of Calculus” →