From the 2011 Bridges Conference, a beautiful piece of sculpture from Nick Durnan.
Appreciation
An Impossible Deal
I don’t think these bar owners knew what they were getting themselves into when they offered this deal.
At the very least, I think this is an open-and-shut case of fraudulent advertising!
Teaching
Math-Intensive Majors
The MAA and David Bressoud released a report about the current status of math intensive majors in the U.S. (which you can find here).
Bressoud starts with the encouraging news in the STEM fields–Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In the past fifteen years, colleges have seen a 33% increase in students in these majors. However, those numbers may be dominated by particularly large increases in Biology and Psychology.
As a mathematician, Bressoud is interested in math-intensive majors, and so he looks more closely at mathematics, engineering, and physical sciences. As total college enrollments and STEM majors have increased, these math-intensive majors attract a consistent percentage of students. In fact, Bressoud notes that this percentage has been stable for the past 30 years, as math-intensive degrees have shown no growth as a percentage of overall college degrees.
This is curious, given the increasingly quantitative nature of modern society, industry, and academia. Are greater percentages of students in other countries pursuing such degrees? Or do we only need 0.5% of our college students studying math-intensive fields?
Application
Disincentive Pricing
While riding the rails around Portugal, I frequently saw passengers buying tickets directly from the conductor on the train. It got me thinking about how high the penalty should be for not buying your ticket ahead of time. That is, how much more should you be charged for a ticket purchased on the train than in the station?
You see, if a rider could evade the conductor at a consistent rate, it might make mathematical (if not ethical) sense to gamble on paying the higher fare every so often. For example, let’s say you can successfully sneak a free ride once every three attempts. If the ticket in the station costs $5, then the price of the on-board ticket should be at least $7.50 to discourage you from attempting this cheat.
I never found out the price difference in Portugal. But I do know how it works on the Long Island Rail Road.
Returning from vacation, we were rushing from the airport to the train station. We didn’t have time to purchase tickets from the machine beforehand as the train was literally pulling into the station as we arrived. After a long day’s travel, we were happy just to make our connection and get home as quickly as possible. We figured whatever increase we’d have to pay was worth it.
And it turned out to be nearly a 100% increase. Instead of the usual $6.25, the on-board charge was $12. I guess that means they think fare-evaders can get away with it a little less than half the time?
We were happy to get home in a timely manner. And I was happy to have one more open mathematical question resolved!
Appreciation Teaching Technology
Fun With Geogebra: Cardioid Tortilla
Somewhere out there a tortilla maker is striving to make a perfect Cardioid Tortilla.
But there is still work to do.
