Math Resources You’ll Love

I hope you’re enjoying my newsletter! We’re only one edition in but there is some good stuff coming.

In addition to my newsletters asking what exactly math is, from time to time I’ll send out updates with news and notable articles from around the math world. The math world is large, and here’s a few places to find cool news and updates.

John D Cook’s Blog, The Endeavour

John D Cook is a mathematician with an interesting specialty: he is a consultant who works with various organizations in a variety of industries providing help with mathematical topics. From cryptography to computational fraud analysis, special functions to the art of consulting, John has covered many topics in mathematics and beyond. And most of this has found its way onto his daily blog where he has been posting for over 15 years. An excellent resource to find interesting problems in mathematics applied to industry.

His other writing is also excellent, such as his Twitter accounts focused on various math and science topics.

Quanta Magazine

Quanta Magazine is a science and mathematics publication, but the focus on mathematics is extremely good. I’ve only been aware of Quanta recently but there have been several great articles such as this piece on the newly discovered aperiodic tile and why mathematical proof is a social contract.

Three Blue One Brown

I’ve often found that mathematics books and materials either end up being too simplistic and low-level or too complex and dense. The video channel for Three Blue One Brown (started by Grant Sanderson) finds great topics at just the right level of explanation for someone with a good grounding in mathematics. Grant covers a variety of topics in novel ways, and being a video series is visual in nature. Definitely good to mention 3b1b here!

Wikipedia (or alternatively Mathworld)

Honestly, classics become classic for a reason and if you need a solid explanation of a mathematical concept, Wikipedia is still the best place to look. Lately I’ve been reading the page on classification of finite simple groups, which is a great guide to a deep topic.

If you need a second source or just want to double check something, I also recommend Wolfram Mathworld, another oldie but goodie.

Groups without Algebra

Last and certainly not least, I’ll promote a video series I’ve been working on called Groups without Algebra, where I show examples of groups without, well, algebra. Intended to be a good introduction to group theoretic concepts for general audiences who have not necessarily completed university-level math courses, these videos are - in my opinion - pretty great. Check out the first video in the series that discusses the Cyclic 4 group.

That’s it for now! Enjoy yourselves and take care! The next edition, “Is Math Geometry?” will be released next month.