The Colorful History of Binary Arithmetic

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin Performer, satirist, and mathematician Tom Lehrer in the 1950s As the musical satirist (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer quipped in one of his songs (“New Math”), “Base-eight arithmetic is just like base-ten—if you are missing two fingers.” It was a funny line that always got a laugh, but it highlights a major...

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Thoughts on Advanced Placement Precalculus

By: David Bressoud @dbressoud The College Board is now actively exploring the possibility of an AP Precalculus course. I have agreed to be part of the advisory board for this exploration and am sharing my thoughts and concerns in this article. The College Board welcomes “academic conversations” about this possibility. Those who would like to...

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Staying Connected with Math after Academia

Anudha Mittal By Anudha Mittal Evenings after work I watch math lectures: Ravi Vakil, Terrance Tao, Manjul Bhargava, Akshay Venkatesh, Sir Michael Atiyah. A welcome break from my predictable day job and my more-mundane social life, the videos stimulate my mind and get me thinking of exciting new ideas. I try to raise some interesting...

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The Spark that Ignited My Journey into Mathematics: My AMC Story

By Bryan Nevarez (Queens College, City University of New York; Think & Write) Bryan Nevarez As a freshman in high school, the only thing that the initials AMC meant to me was the popular nation-wide chain of theaters. So when I was informed by my high school, seemingly out of nowhere, that I was selected...

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Summer Reading List

Darren Glass By Darren Glass, Gettysburg College One of the hats I wear is as the book reviews editor for the American Mathematical Monthly. A recent issue featured a number of our colleagues listing their ‘Mathematical Comfort Foods’— mathy books that they have found themselves returning to for comfort during this strange year. A rare...

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Lessons From My Pop

By Allison Henrich @KnottyAllison Allison Henrich and Scott Jones Scott Jones was a high school dropout when he enlisted in the Navy at age 17. He went to night school to earn a bachelor’s degree so that he could earn his dream job as a Navy pilot. An athlete who represented the military on the...

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Mathematics Exchange Program Fosters Collaboration

By Audrey Malagon, Lead Editor, DUE Point, Virginia Wesleyan University The SUMMIT-P project aims to strengthen the relationships between mathematics and other disciplines through curricular innovation and partnerships. As a joint effort among many institutions, ranging from two-year community colleges to R1 universities, the project is having a significant impact on the academic community nationwide....

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Student-Led Academic Community Organizing

By Alvaro Carbonero, Brittany Gelb, Amaury V. Miniño, Vanessa Sun @vanessainstem, Lee Trent @vacuou5ly_tru3, @ourfa2m2 The OURFA2M2 organizers, all 20-22 at the time, exhausted, relieved, and thrilled, moments after the last of the conference participants logged off in December 2020. In December 2020, five current and recent undergraduates held an online conference designed to connect...

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No Going Back

By Tim Chartier @timchartier, Davidson College I grew up just outside Philadelphia. My childhood memories include games of tennis ball baseball in a parking lot, sledding down the largest hill in town while dodging snowballs launched from my friends, and Philadelphia classics like hoagies, soft pretzels, and steak sandwiches. After high school graduation, my parents...

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Is Euler’s Identity Beautiful? And If So, How?

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. That’s certainly the case when it comes to beauty in mathematics. I long ago learned that not every mathematician agrees with me when I describe a particular mathematical concept or result as beautiful; they may see it as anything but.  To...

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