IntMath Newsletter: 7 billion people, blog carnival, food
By Murray Bourne, 27 Oct 2011
27 Oct 2011
In this Newsletter:
1. 7 billion people next week
2. Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival #16
3. Singapore's food vulnerability
4. Why Randomly-Selected Politicians Would Improve Democracy
5. Puzzles
6. Friday math movie: Symphony of Science
7. Final thought: Find your passion
1. 7 billion people next week
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There will soon be 7 billion of us, competing for clean air, food and water. Check out my updated current world population (live). |
2. Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival #16
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I recently hosted a carnival of math. You can read an interesting variety of posts by math bloggers from all over the world. |
3. Singapore's food vulnerability
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I wrote this article on World Food Day, 16 Oct. Here's how one country plans to improve its precarious food situation. |
4. Why Randomly-Selected Politicians Would Improve Democracy
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This is a fun article I found on the Physics Arxiv blog (which is part of MIT's Technology Review). It involves a mathematical analysis comparing whether good governance can be achieved more effectively by elected officials than by randomly selected people. The researchers found that in every case, adding random legislators improves the performance of parliament. Read more of this (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) article: Why Randomly-Selected Politicians Would Improve Democracy (external site) |
5. Puzzles
There was only one reader (Sai Krishna Nadella) who got the correct answer to last Newsletter's number puzzle. The answer is 2519.
New puzzle: Here is a coded message. Can you figure out what it says?
CGTAOYFUDOORUTNOIRIUNALISUGETT
6. Friday math movie: Symphony of Science
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It's a sad state of affairs when we need to write anthems for science. However, this is quite cleverly done - the words of eminent scientists set to music. |
7. Final thought: find your passion
The world mourned the loss of Steve Jobs recently. In 2005 he gave a commencement speech at Stanford University, in which he said:
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
My summary of his speech goes something like this:
Don't chase grades. Find your passion and let it grow. When you learn in order to feed your passion, it doesn't even feel like work.
Until next time, enjoy whatever you learn.
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