One month — Math Awareness month

It’s math awareness month! It’s also a month of midterms, homeworks, projects, and articles for those in the academic milieu. And now we’re heading for the end of the semester… I have three more classes in which to cover the multivariable central limit theorem and Brownian motion. Ambitious.

Check out an NPR piece on Martin Gardner to start off your belated celebration of Math Awareness Month. Martin Gardner, of course, makes me think of the enormous world of recreational math communication, much of which now takes form on the internet. Can you claim to be a knowledgeable YouTuber or recreational mathematician if you’ve never seen one of Vi Hart’s videos, like the one on hexaflexagon safety  (Gardner connection there!) or pineapple accuracy on Nickelodeon? Or maybe you’ve encountered the blog of math poetry, or read a post by a math blogger like Evelyn Lamb. I am almost too young to remember how mathematics was popularized before the internet. How did people who like the stuff learn about it in “the old days” — did they read a book?!

Technology has really changed how we share fun stuff with friends. How often do you share math?

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