What is the Most Valuable Benefit You Got from Becoming a Mathematician?

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social Having a media presence, I often get asked for a quotable answer to that question. I usually answer, “It taught me never to be sure I’m right.” Mathematics is unforgiving. If you made an error in your solution or your proof, you have only two choices. Correct the error or...

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Winging It in the AI Apocalypse

By Matt Jackson Generative AI emerged with the suddenness of a large earthquake and with implications that shook our foundation. AI tools surfaced as simultaneously powerful and destabilizing, with inherent ethical and existential questions. I work in Technology and Innovation at a small liberal arts college, and am among the staff tasked with learning and, soon,...

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Grad Students Leading the Way: How to organize your own local workshop

By Pamela E. Harris and Alex Moon I am always impressed by students who take the initiative to lead in their own learning. As I thought about this recently, Alex Moon, a second year graduate student at UW-Milwaukee, came to mind providing an example of how students can lead in this way. The lack of...

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Should You Choose to Serve First in a Pickleball Match?

By William Figary and Miky Wright Pickleball is growing in popularity. When a team in a doubles game gets to serve first, they seem to be in control of the match and may continue to score until they win. But there are a lot of other things besides serving that affect the chances of winning....

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The State of IBL

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. I talked about inquiry-based learning (IBL) in my Launchings column of April 2019, “Recent Research into IBL Mathematics.” Of particular importance was the article by Laursen and Rasmussen that had recently appeared, “I on the prize: Inquiry...

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Mathematicians and Money Management

    By Annalisa Crannell This is a blog post about mathematics and money. To be a little more specific, it’s about mathematics, money, my life, and how those have all come together so that I’m writing this as I retire (“retire”, heh heh) at the age of 58. I’ve always been a big fan...

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Preparing Our Classrooms for AI This Fall

By Lew Ludwig As we approach August, my thoughts inevitably turn to classes and syllabi. However, this year feels different. I'm determined to be more intentional about incorporating generative AI into my teaching. I'm guided by two key principles: first, more students are likely to use generative AI, and second, graduates who cannot think, write,...

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Some Helpful LaTeX Tools to Get You Started or to Up Your Game

  By Alexis Newton LaTeX is the most common language used for writing mathematics. At some point in your career as an undergraduate student, graduate student and beyond, you will likely be required to use it. I have had several professors who wanted all homework assignments typed in LaTeX. While in the beginning this felt...

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Algebra. It’s powerful. But it’s not what it was

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social What is algebra? That question arose in the Q&A session at a recent screening of the new documentary movie Counted Out that I wrote about in last month’s post. Here is the answer I alluded to in my response, but was way too much to launch into. To most non-mathematicians...

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What is a Teaching Postdoc?

By Aram Bingham & Rebecca Swanson According to the American Association of University Professors, 68% of faculty members in the US are not on the tenure track. Many of the remaining 32% are in teaching-focused tenure-track positions. Having a strong instructional resume can help recent graduates obtain desirable teaching-oriented faculty positions. One way for a...

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