This is a nice collection of some lovely mathematical images and animations:
There are some knot animations, some 3-D fractals, and some cool surfaces. It seems as though these images and animations were generated in Maple.
There are also some nice images generated in some kind of ray-tracing program that may or may not be called vort.
Vort could also be the name of the person who created all these images. I’m not sure; my Dutch isn’t very good.
This report from CareerCast ranks 200 jobs from best to worst:
http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/2011-ranking-200-jobs-best-worst
Jobs were analyzed based on five factors: Environment, Income, Outlook, Stress, and Physical Demands.
As is so often the case in these job-ranking surveys, math-based careers fared very well: coming in at #2 is Mathematician (whatever that means), #3 is Actuary (always near the top of these lists), and at #4 is Statistician (great if you like stats, I suppose).
I guess Roustabout is not as much fun as it sounds, as it placed 200th in the rankings. And I’ve met a lot of happy, successful Taxi Drivers (#192) in my life.
It’s not surprising to see Teacher in the #100 spot, with its high stress-to-income ratio. But Surgeon right behind at #101? According to the results, it’s about 3 times as stressful but about 7 times the pay.
Might be worthwhile to take a closer look at the methodology, which can be found here.
This is a nice comment-thread and poll on Quora responding to the question “What is the most beautiful equation?”
http://www.quora.com/Mathematics/What-is-the-most-beautiful-equation
No surprise to see Euler’s Identity on top with a whopping 350 votes.
There are fun entries all throughout thread, and I definitely learned a few things through perusing. And I guess I can forgive the participants for including some inequalities on the list.
This is a cool video showing the assembly of an origami Buckyball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb2lHNqPm7w
The Buckyball is a geometric form named after the architect, designer, and futurist Buckminster Fuller, who used the shape in his designs. It was later discovered that certain carbon molecules take the shape of buckyballs, and it was even recently confirmed that these molecules existed in deep space.
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This is an innovative and intriguing idea: a graphic novel based on the infamous struggles to articulate the foundations of mathematics.
The story is apparently narrated by the great mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, and the cast of characters includes Georg Cantor, Kurt Godel, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and many other prominent figures from mathematics and logic. A review in the New York Times can be found here.
The philosophy of mathematics is extremely interesting (start by asking yourself “What is a number?”), and this particular tale is truly a fascinating one. I am eager to see how these graphic artists tell the story.