Monthly Archives: September 2009

An Asteroid Named Plimpton

I had an article in the Boston Globe Ideas section this weekend entitled Naming the sky: The true story of one man’s quest to give George Plimpton a permanent presence in orbit, about my successful attempt at naming an asteroid after George Plimpton. The official citation for the asteroid is below: 7932 Plimpton Discovered 1989 [...]

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Average Cost of a Child

From Duggar Economics: The Costs of 19 Kids in the WSJ: When you add it all up, it’s not uncommon for a single child to cost a normal, middle-class family something like $1.1 million, from birth through the undergrad years. To get some perspective, the median price of a home in 2008 was $180,100. It [...]

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Applied Math at the Movies (including supplement)

This morning I had an article entitled The Mysterious Equilibrium of Zombies in the Boston Globe Ideas section about applied math in movies. I mentioned a number of movies, math and articles. For those who are interested in more details, here are some references, film clips and stills: Casino Royale and Fractals The fractal it looks like is [...]

Posted in Boston Globe, Harry Potter, Ideas, Math, Movie, Networks, Science | Leave a comment