Traversing the Python Landscape for Mathematical Applets

  By Lew Ludwig A Thought Experiment He said, “Imagine you have a container with a curvy top that is filled with Kool-Aid. Now imagine the Kool-Aid leveling out due to gravity. That level is the average value of the function.” I said, “That’s pretty good. Have you looked for a GIF so students can...

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Humanities for Mathematicians

By Pup Horst I secretly want to run away and become a humanities professor. I’m not sure which discipline specifically—general philosophy might be too general and religious studies might be too specific, and I worry I’d be no good with literature. But it’s a romantic idea, isn’t it? Sitting in a room with students brimming...

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How Will the New AI Impact Mathematics Research?

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social Will Large Language Models such as ChatGPT change how new mathematics is discovered? Yes. It’s happening already, just as occurred when earlier computing technologies came along: mechanical and then electronic calculators, general purpose digital computers, graphing calculators, etc. and more recently tools such as Mathematica, Maple, and (my favorite) Wolfram...

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The Perpetual Problem of Leap Day

Excerpted from Servois’ 1813 Perpetual Calendar, by Salvatore J. Petrilli, Jr. Editor’s Note: Happy Leap Day! In 1813, French mathematician and priest François-Joseph Servois proposed a “calendrier perpétuel,” or perpetual calendar. What follows is a lightly edited excerpt from a June 2012 article in the MAA journal Convergence on the way Servois’ calendar handled leap...

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Class Dismissed: Learning Outside the Classroom

  By Tim Chartier Let’s begin in the fall of 2013 when three students walked into my office. They asked if we could create an analytics group for the men’s basketball team at Davidson College. That’s a tall order. This is the program with notable successes including but not limited to being the team for...

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A Farewell to Living Proof

By Allison Henrich and Matthew Pons When we started the project Living Proof: Stories of Resilience Along the Mathematical Journey, the goal was to provide a resource for students who were struggling with belonging in the mathematical community. At the outset, we were focused on the sense of belonging that students feel (or don’t feel)...

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On Disrupting Hierarchies

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. This is an overview of the recent MAA Notes volume by Daniel Reinholz: Equitable and Engaging Mathematics Teaching: A Guide to Disrupting Hierarchies in the Classroom. When I used Thomas Hawkins’ doctoral dissertation Lebesgue’s Theory of Integration: Its Origins...

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Bringing Identities into the Classroom

By Ksenija Simić-Muller A question I think about a lot when I reflect on my pedagogical practice is What would it mean for students to bring their entire selves to the mathematics classroom? This question is inspired by the work of Rochelle Gutiérrez. In the introduction to the book Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and...

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What Are You Curious About?

By Lew Ludwig What are you curious about? This is not a question we often pose to students on the first day of class. Typically, I might outline the overall goals of the course: to develop analytical abilities, hone problem-solving skills, and learn to communicate arguments clearly and succinctly. If pressed, I could list specific...

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Being Brown in Higher Education

By Roberto Hernandez  While it is a great privilege to be a PhD student at a private research university, I can’t help but reflect on the various disadvantages and adversity I experienced as a first-generation Mexican-American from a low-income city. Based on my upbringing, I barely even attended college because of the lack of resources...

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