Calculus for Teachers: Whence Complex Numbers

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. Last month I tried to convey why complex numbers should be of interest to someone teaching regular real-valued calculus. This month I want to tackle an even more basic question: How did anybody even think to include the...

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What I Needed to Hear Ten Years Ago: A DREAMer’s Journey in Math

By Daniel Flores Galiote Throughout my academic journey, I have often found myself unable to relate on a personal level with my peers. For example, classmates will talk about the careers of their family members, many from families of professors. When such a conversation arises, I remain silent because why would I want to tell...

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There and Back Again: The Khannection Between AI and Engagement

By Lew Ludwig Recently, my wife and I watched a Columbus Crew victory—from the future. We were in Sydney for the EDUTech_AU conference, and thanks to the wonders of the international dateline, we enjoyed a Thursday-morning triumph before the match even happened in Ohio. The opening Crew goal was a textbook example of "playing to space":...

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Cynthia Simmons: Space for Math

By Ralph Pantozzi What do you do when you dream of exploring space, but the spaces in which you travel contain few clear routes to the stars? Cynthia Simmons, spaceflight engineering specialist and Deputy Center Director at NASA , knew what to do: point herself in the direction of the nearest signs of flight. I...

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Devlin’s Angle: Now In Book Form

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social Devlin’s Angle began in January 1996, as a feature in the MAA’s new online magazine (an “e-zine”). Today, just shy of thirty years later, it’s still going. There’s a complete archive of all the posts at https://profkeithdevlin.org/devlins-angle/. And now, there’s a Devlin’s Angle book, published by the MAA in its Spectrum series....

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My Values

By Kira Hamman Let me tell you what I value: Creating belonging. Listening to understand. Asking real questions and paying attention to the answers. Intellectual humility. Genuine curiosity. In my time as editor of Math Values, I have seen this community actively elevate all of those values, even when it’s hard. I’ve worked with mathematicians...

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We Are Ruled By Math

By David Burn From axioms come idioms. In the past, I have clumsily claimed that I’m not good at math, but that’s like being not good at gravity. Everything relies on math. Science and engineering rely on math. Language relies on math. Mathematics is the structure underlying our primary ways of thinking and making sense...

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Open-Source Software Uncovers how Students and Instructors Engage with Textbooks

By Erin Moss Have you ever wanted a comprehensive understanding of how mathematics texts are really being utilized by college instructors and students? The NSF DUE-funded UTMOST project (Undergraduate Teaching of Mathematics with Open Software and Textbooks) explored just that, while further developing open resources for use in college mathematics classrooms. Readers may recall that...

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Calculus for Teachers: Why Complex Numbers

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. And now something else remarkable happens. If our function is differentiable at every point inside an open disc that contains x, no matter how small that disc might be, then the second derivative must exist everywhere inside that...

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Rate My Professor

By Shriya V. Nagpal I had just finished introducing sequences, and the students were working on a practice problem before I presented it on the board. As I did most days, I walked around the classroom, checking in on their understanding. The students were distracted — registration for next semester had opened that morning for...

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