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For the first time, I’ve been using Goodreads to track what I read, and making sure to read a bit at bedtime almost every night. I figured it would be worth listing the books that I felt were five-star books, in case they help anyone else. In alphabetical order by

One of the reasons I’m writing the Dictionary of Mathematical Eponymy is to introduce myself to new ideas, and to mathematicians I didn’t know about. To things I wish I knew more about. Elliptic curves are pretty high on that list. What is the Lutz-Nagell theorem? It’s sometimes - reasonably,

A puzzle via @CmonMattTHINK (Matt Enlow): There is a line that is tangent to the curve y = x^4 - x^3 at two distinct points. What is its equation? (Can you find it without calculus?) #iteachmath #math #maths #mathchat #mathschat — Matt Enlow (@CmonMattTHINK) December 21, 2018 (I think we

“A ninety-seventh.” The student scratched her head. “I’d call that 0.01.” A moment more’s thought. “0.0103? Probably good enough.” For the Mathematical Ninja, this was about as good as could be expected. They sighed all the same and wrote down: $0. \dot 01\, 03\, 09\, 27\, 83\, 50\, 51 \\

This is based on a puzzle I heard from @colinthemathmo, who wrote it up here; he heard it from @DavidB52s, and there the trail goes cold. The Mathematical Ninja lay awake, toes itching. This generally meant that a mission was in the offing. Awake or dreaming? Unclear. But the thought

Dear Uncle Colin, Why are there only five platonic solids? - Pentagons Look Awful. Try Octagons! Hi, PLATO, and thanks for your message! A platonic solid is a three-dimensional shape with the following rules: Each face is the same regular polygon The same number of edges meet at every vertex

I recently had a flurry of correspondence with translators of The Maths Behind (available wherever etc., but also soon in Swedish and Korean): embarrassingly, they had caught several mistakes in the book. These things happen; we try to put them right and move on. However, it got me wondering: can