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 [...]
Category Archives: Ideas
Applied Math at the Movies (including supplement)
Also posted in Boston Globe, Harry Potter, Math, Movie, Networks, Science Leave a comment
The Arbesman Limit: How to be Famous in a Few Easy Steps
I have another science humor piece in the Ideas Section of the Boston Globe today entitled The Arbesman Limit: How to be Famous in a Few Easy Steps. As before, we adapted this one from another article of mine in the Science Creative Quarterly.
Also posted in Boston Globe, Humor, Science, Uncategorized, arbesmanlimit 1 Comment
Anatomy of a Spring Break
I have a science humor piece in the Ideas Section of the Boston Globe today entitled Anatomy of a Spring Break. It’s adapted from my article in the Science Creative Quarterly.
Also posted in Boston Globe, Humor, Science, Uncategorized Leave a comment
Mega-Regions
Richard Florida, in this weekend’s WSJ, discusses the Rise of the Mega-Region. Florida argues that nation-states and cities are somewhat passé, and that the relevant quantity that should be considered is the mega-region. A mega-region is an area “that hosts business and economic activity on a massive scale, generating a large share of the world’s [...]
Also posted in Buffalo, City Leave a comment
Community Urinalysis
The NYT Magazine’s Year in Ideas is my favorite issue of the year, and this one is no exception. One idea that I particularly enjoyed is the concept of community urinalysis. By examining the sewage water of a city, scientists can examine which drugs its inhabitants are using. As Clive Thompson writes: …when [Jennifer] Field’s [...]
Also posted in City, Science, drugs Leave a comment
Manhattanhenge
Manhattanhenge, a term coined by the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, refers to the dates when the setting sun aligns with the streets of Manhattan, generally May 28th and July 12th or 13th. Via Flickr, here are some pictures of Manhattanhenge.
Also posted in City, NYC, new york city 1 Comment
Network Theory in Cities
Jason Kottke recently pondered what the minimum number of New York City residents one would need to choose, such that these people know every single person in the city: Any guesses as to the smallest group size? Better yet, is there any research out there that specifically addresses this question? Or is it impossible…are there [...]
Also posted in City, Complexity, NYC, Networks Leave a comment
CDC To Cut Funding for Disease Tracking
The CDC is planning to scale back its main disease surveillance system, BioSense, and will now only focus on tracking diseases that occur in the largest cities in the United States. While this might be due to budget cuts, this strikes me as a foolhardy decision. To focus only on the larger cities is to [...]
Also posted in Complexity, Politics, Science Leave a comment
Census 2010: How to Word Simple Questions
A recent article in the WSJ, entitled Census 2010 Plays Six Not-So-Easy Questions (behind paywall), discusses the difficulty of choosing and wording the questions that will go into the 2010 Census. This kind of information is important for many things, from allocating members of Congress to policy planning to learning about the growth and decline [...]
Also posted in Politics Leave a comment
Braess’s Paradox
Braess’s Paradox, named after Dietrich Braess, is when you add roads or capacity for cars, and thereby worsen traffic (or alternatively, you lower traffic costs by removing roads). Formally, this simply means that the current traffic equilibrium state is not the optimal one. Dietrich Braess, on his website, notes that this concept has applications to [...]
Also posted in Complexity, Math, People, Science, Traffic Leave a comment