For a few months now, the NYT Opinionator Blog has been hosting a series of pieces that do a phenomenally good job of explaining mathematics in layman’s terms.
The latest article is about Calculus (with a promise of more to come): Change We Can Believe In is written by Steven Strogatz, an Applied Mathematician at Cornell University.
There are several other articles in this series, and if you haven’t been reading them, you really should go check them out. Assign them. Discuss them in your classes.
- From Fish to Infinity (Jan. 31, 2010)
- Rock Groups (Feb. 7, 2010)
- The Enemy of My Enemy (Feb. 14, 2010)
- Division and Its Discontents (Feb. 21, 2010)
- The Joy of X (Feb. 28, 2010)
- Finding Your Roots (March 7, 2010)
- Square Dancing (March 14, 2010)
- Think Globally (March 21, 2010)
- Power Tools (March 28, 2010)
- Take It to the Limit (April 4, 2010)
Given the discussions we’ve been having about teaching Series and Series approximations lately on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, I wonder if he’d consider writing an article explaining “Why Series?” to students.
