Almost anyone who has spent time cutting a pancake with an exotic knife will acknowledge that it can be interesting. This study, also, acknowledges that cutting a pancake with an exotic knife can be interesting: “Cutting a Pancake with an Exotic Knife,” David O.H. Cutler and Neil J. A. Sloane, arXiv:2511.15864, 2025. (Thanks to Mason […]
Discrete Mathematics with Ducks is a textbook about discrete mathematics and ducks: Discrete Mathematics with Ducks (second edition), by Sarah-Marie Belcastro, ISBN 9780367570705, 700 Pages, published June 30, 2020 by Chapman & Hall. (Mostly) unrelated: “How a dead duck changed my life”:
Ig Nobel Prize winner Pat Robertson — who predicted that the world would end in 1982 — died today (June 8, 2023), according to numerous news reports. The 2011 Ig Nobel Mathematics Prize was awarded to: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who […]
Mathematician Jim Propp connects the counting numbers — the concept of them, not particular, specific numbers — to the seemingly unconnected Lake Woebegon Effect. Propp’s essay appears in his Mathematical Enchantments blog: Beneath and Beyond … The twentieth century weekly radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” had a recurring feature called “The news from Lake […]