Math Digest Summaries of Media Coverage of Math Edited by Allyn Jackson, AMS Contributors: Mike Breen (AMS), Claudia Clark (freelance science writer), Lisa DeKeukelaere (Brown University), Annette Emerson (AMS)

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2005 Math Digest

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December 2005

• Articles about the largest prime number found to date, December 2005 and January 2006
• "Mathematician/Counterterror Entrepreneur: Jonathan Farley," Seed, December 2005/January 2006
• Articles about Michael Viscardi, Top Winner in 2005 Siemens-Westinghouse Competition, December 2005
• "Pulling the Strings": Review of Hiding in the Mirror: the Mysterious Lure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond, by Lawrence M. Krauss, Nature, 22 December 2005
• "Busted: The gold standard of digital security lies in tatters," New Scientist, 17 December 2005
• "Math class proves Smarties fun fact isn't true," CBC News, 16 December 2005
• "NUMB3RS gets real 'Science Guy'," The Indianapolis Star, 15 December 2006
• "The Rembrandt Code," Wired Magazine, 13 December 2005
• "Researcher says math can protect border," El Paso Times, 12 December 2005
• "Mathematiker mit poetischer Begabung (Mathematician with poetic talent)," Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 11 December 2005
• "Proof that roundabouts drive us round the bend,: Life Style Extra, 10 December 2005
• "BCS Schemers Are Looking Out for No. 1," The Washington Post, 10 December 2005
• "The Numbers Guy," Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 December 2005
• "Shining early," Science, 9 December 2005
• "Warped geometry speeds airline boarding," News@nature.com", 9 December 2005;
  "Israeli researchers fly by the numbers," Israel21c 18 December 2005
• "Old muskie record catching attention," Chicago Sun-Times, 7 December 2005;
  "Muskie math: World-record story just doesn't add up," St. Paul Pioneer Press, 11 December 2005
• "Maths stabilises wobbly tables," ABC News Online (Australia), 5 December 2005
• "Odds are, lotto ticket a wasted dollar," Allentown Morning Call, 4 December 2005
• "Risk of severe asthma episodes predicted from fluctuation analysis of airway function," Nature, 1 December 2005
• "A calculated effort," The Boston Globe, 1 December 2005
• "Littlest Butterfly," Discover Magazine, December 2005

November 2005

• "The Marvels of PostScript": Review of Mathematical Illustrations, by Bill Casselman, American Scientist, November-December 2005
• "Bettor Math," American Scientist Online, November-December 2005
• "Plumbing the Depths of Rumor Research": Interview with Martin Bourgeois, National Public Radio, 28 November 2005
  "Is there anybody in there?," New Scientist, 26 November 2005
• "Montreal math whiz is scrabble champ," Montreal Gazette, 21 November 2005;
  "Montreal mathematician crowned world Scrabble champ," CTV.ca, 21 November 2005;
  "Canadian wins world Scrabble title," The Canadian Jewish News, 15 December 2005
• "Wellesley math whiz adds $2,000 scholarship," Boston Herald, 21 November 2005
• "Die Mathematik beginnt zu erzählen (Mathematics starts to narrate)", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 20 November 2005
• "Problems to Sharpen the Young," Science News Online, 19 November 2005
• "Spies, lies and butterflies," New Scientist, 19 November 2005
• "Moments of truth," New Scientist, 19 November 2005
• "Tube Route," Science, 18 November 2005
  "Dimensions of superspreading," Nature, 17 November 2005
• "Math professor wins science award," Newsday, 17 November 2005;
  "Nation's pride," Science, 2 December 2005
• "Baseball prediction takes a geeky turn," USA Today, 13 November 2005
• "U.S. kids say math doesn't count much," BostonHerald.com, 12 November 2005
• "Math problems too big for our brains," Windsor Star (Canada), 8 November 2005
• "DaVinci Declassified," The Learning Channel, 6 November 2005
• "Pushing the Limit," Science News Online, 5 November 2005
• "Crowd synchrony on the Millennium Bridge," Nature, 3 November 2005

October 2005

• Articles about Nobel Prize to Robert J. Aumann, October 2005
• Articles about event on mathematics and popular culture, October 2005
• Articles about NAS report on federal support for science and math, October 2005
• Letter to the Editor, Ms. Magazine, Fall 2005
• Review of Complexities: Women in Mathematics, edited by Bettye Anne Case and Anne M. Leggett. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 30 October 2005
• Big Ideas, TVOntario, 29 October 2005
• "Abstract art appreciation is all about the hidden fractals," New Scientist, 29 October 2005
• "Never give up": Interview with Timothy Gowers, New Scientist, 29 October 2005
• "Math + drama = $100,000 award," The Globe and Mail, 26 October 2005
• "Rechnen mit dem Talmud (Computing with the Talmud)," Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 October 2005
• "Math whiz gives lecture at UNL," Lincoln Journal Star, 22 October 2005
• "Evolution of indirect reciprocity,"Nature, 22 October 2005
• "France: A Knot Mathematician, With a Twist," Science, 21 October 2005
• "Math in Today's World," New York Times, 15 October 2005
• "NUMB3RS Racks Up Plaudits At Conference," The Hartford Courant, 10 October 2005
• "Meins klingelt anders (Mine rings differently)," Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 9 October 2005
• "Who Knew Math Was So Prime Time," Los Angeles Times Magazine, 9 October 2005
• "Who Knew?" The Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 October 2005
• "Math comes alive in whimsical Alice's Numberland", The Providence Journal, 6 October 2005
• Review of Saunders Mac Lane: A mathematical autobiography, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 5 October 2005
• "Who's Counting: Risks and Rewards," ABCnews.com, 2 October 2005
• "Brilliant 10: Maryam Mirzakhani," Popular Science, October 2005
• "Information Takes Shape," Discover, October 2005

September 2005

• Reviews of Coincidences, Chaos and All That Math Jazz, by Edward Burger and Michael Starbird, September and October 2005
• "Group Theory in the Bedroom," American Scientist, September-October 2005
• "The Incomplete Gödel": Review of Incompleteness, by Rebecca Goldstein, and A World Without Time, by Palle Yourgrau, American Scientist, September-October 2005
• "The Music of the Primes," BBC FOUR, 28 September 2005
• "Alle Wege führen nach Paris---und Anchorage" ("All Roads Lead to Paris---and Anchorage"), Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, 25 September 2005
• "Mothers Driving Cycles": Review of Ecological Orbits, by Lev Ginzburg and Mark Colyvan, Science, 23 September 2005
• "Playing Patterns." NetWatch, Science, 23 September 2005
• "For Fry's It's a Prime Time to Support Higher Math," Los Angeles Times, 20 September 2004
• "Chaos", New Scientist, 17 September 2005
• "Dirac's hidden geometry," Nature, 15 September 2005
• "New study sums up math debate," Newsday, 13 September 2005
• "Eine Formel fürs passende Geschenk" ("A formula for the appropriate gift"), Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, 11 September 2005
• "The Dismal Rhetoric of Economics; Teaching Math With Pineapples, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 September 2005
• "The Kidney Connection: Math Makes A Match," Time Online, 4 September 2005
• "Hey, Jerk. I'm Talking to You" Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 September 2005
• "Symmetry by numbers": Review of The Equation that Couldn't be Solved, by Mario Livio, Nature, 1 September 2005

August 2005

• Articles on SAT math scores, August and September 2005
• Articles on Incan knotted strings (khipu), August 2005
• "Science and Society," World Talk Radio, 31 August 2005
• "Breakout!" New Scientist, 27 August 2005
• "Film review: Proof," Reuters, 26 August 2005
• "Exploring Microbial Diversity---A Vast Below," Science, 26 August 2005
• "Numbers game," BBC News International, 23 August 2005
• "Hypothesizing Women," Tallahassee Democrat, 21 August 2005
• "Mathematical recipes," New Scientist, 20 August 2005
• "Back to School Means Back to Math," New York Times, 16 August 2005
• "Fight for the naked quark," New Scientist, 13 August 2005
• "Searching for Intelligence in Edinburgh," The Register, 10 August 2005
• "Mathematician reveals flaws in Japan's war code," ABC Online (Australia), 9 August 2005
• "Professor Ekhad meldet sich nicht" ("Professor Ekhad is not responding"), Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, 7 August 2005
• "Prime time," New Scientist, 6 August 2005
• "Hurricanes get boost from ocean spray," Science News, 6 August 2005;
  "Sea spray likely whips winds to hurricane force," USA Today, 6 August 2005
• "Count Themselves Lucky," Nature, 4 August 2005
• "What's the plot?" Nature, 4 August 2005
• "Putting certainty in the bank," Nature, 4 August 2005

July 2005

• "Life Cycles," American Scientist, July-August 2005
• "Football by the Numbers" and "A Home for Wayward Math Problems," The Boston Sunday Globe, 31 July 2005
• "Flawed Statistics in Murder Trial May Cost Expert His Medical License," Science, 22 July 2005
• "Harvard Researchers Discuss Systems Biology," Bio-IT World, 21 July 2005
• "U math institute bugs its way to record grant," Star Tribune, 20 July 2005
• "The professor's days are numbered," The Boston Globe, 18 July 2005
• "Geheimnisse, die sich in Zahlen verbergen", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 17 July 2005
• "Math and Science Are a Scream for Students in a Course on Roller-Coaster Design," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 July 2005
• "Data-Point: Steady strides," Science, 15 July 2005
• "9-Year-Olds Said Better in Math, Reading," Guardian Unlimited, 14 July 2005
• "Floating ideas," The Guardian UK, 12 July 2005
• "Take it to the limit," New Scientist, 9 July 2005
• "Teaching Qubits New Tricks," Science, 8 July 2005
• "Professor Blackjack," episode in Breaking Vegas, The History Channel, 5 July 2005
• "A Book With a Theory of Everything?," ABC News, 3 July 2005
• "You Are What Your Record Is (Except When You're Not)," The New York Times, 3 July 2005
• "Gender Divide: Educators worrying more than in the past about shortage of women in such hard-science fields as engineering," Winston-Salem Journal, 3 July 2005
• "Renaissance's Man: James Simons Does The Math on Fund," Wall Street Journal, 1 July 2005;
  "Seeking the secrets of a `black box' investor," International Herald Tribune, 19-20 November 2005
• "What Don't We Know?", Science, 1 July 2005
• "June Diary," The National Review Online, 1 July 2005
• "Tilt! If High-rise Buildings Were Designed More Like Ships, Would They Float Upright During An Earthquake?," Discover, July 2005
• "Hurtling Toward Chaos: When water slides reach a certain speed, no scientist can predict their behavior," Discover, July 2005
• Articles on actress Danica McKellar becoming a mathematician, July 2005

June 2005

• Articles on mathematical model of food supply poisoning, June and July 2005
• "Landmarks on the Road to Modern Calculus": Review of The Calculus Gallery: Masterpieces from Newton to Lebesgue, by William Dunham, Science, 24 June 2005
• "Probing Performance Gaps": Review of Gender Differences in Mathematics: An Integrative Psychological Approach, edited by Ann M. Gallagher and James C. Kaufman, Science, 24 June 2005
• "A glance at the current issue of Notices of the American Mathematical Society: Appreciating beauty and magic of mathematics," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 June 2005
• "Grassroots Math Guide," Science, 17 June 2005
• "Trade secret," Science, 17 June 2005
• "Modellers measure `word of mouth' for films," news@nature.com, 14 June 2005
• "A perfect fit," Science, 10 June 2005, page 1547
• "Can Get Satisfaction," Nature, 9 June 2005
• "Game for some road-trip fun?," The Chicago Tribune, 5 June 2005

May 2005

• Obituaries for George Dantzig, May 2005
• Reviews of Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel, May 2005
• "Third Time Proves Charm for Prime-Gap Theorem," Science, 27 May 2005
• "Learning curve," Science, 27 May 2005
• "Juggling the Numbers," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 May 2005
• "Mathematician lauded for (corrected) research," San Jose Mercury News, 25 May 2005
• "Abel prize awarded to Peter Lax," BBC NEWS, UK Edition, 25 May 2005;
  "A-bomb pioneer wins mathematics prize," CNN.com, 24 May 2005
• "Effectiveness of biometric ID system in doubt", United Press International, 23 May 2005
• "Count Him In," Washington Post, 23 May 2005
• Articles on the Sudoku puzzle craze:
  "Can you digit?", Guardian Unlimited, 20 May 2005;
  "Insanity by numbers," Guardian Unlimited, 17 May 2005
• "As easy as 1, 1, 2, 3 ...," The Guardian, 12 May 2005
• "US gives stamp of approval to scientists," Nature, 12 May 2005
• "Learn to love the equation," The Guardian, 9 May 2005
• "Late Author, Teacher Demystified Calculus for Thousands," All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 9 May 2005
• "Nature journalist scoops £10,000," news@nature.com, 9 May 2005
• "'Math guy' has a knack for numbers," Mercury News, 9 May 2005
• "Who's Counting: Math in Narratives," ABCnews.com, 1 May 2005
• "Harvard professor offers services as Hollywood mathematician," Associated Press, 1 May 2005;
  "Divide and Conquer," Boston Globe, 17 May 2005.
• "Surprise! TV Gets the Math Right", Popular Science, May 2005

April 2005

• Reviews of The Math Instinct: Why You're a Mathematical Genius (Along With Lobsters, Birds, Cats and Dogs) by Keith Devlin, April and May 2005
• "Works in Progress," Science News, 30 April 2005
• "Are we nearly there yet?" New Scientist, 30 April 2005
• "Math Motherlode," NetWatch, Science, 29 April 2005
• "Making Math Radioactive," Science Friday, National Public Radio, 29 April 2005
• "Predicting with Unpredictability," Nature, 28 April 2005
• "From y-cubed to the GameCube: Math rules at Nintendo," The News Tribune, 25 April 2005
• "Going beyond Fermat's last theorem," The Hindu, 25 April 2005
• "Baseball's Leading Man of Math Has Some Second Thoughts About the Numbers," The New York Times, 24 April 2005
• "Den besten Papst und den besten Song wählen", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24 April 2005
• "Whatever happened to machines that think?", New Scientist, 23 April 2005
• "Saunders Mac Lane, 95, Pioneer of Algebra's Category Theory, Dies", New York Times, 21 April 2005
• "Noether's Novelty," National Review Online, 21 April 2005
• "The power of staring," New Scientist, 16 April 2005
• "Das Auswahlaxiom und seine Konsequenzen (The Axiom of Choice and its Consequences)," Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 13 April 2005
• "The Proof," The Front Porch, 12 April 2005
• "Capturing the Unicorn: How two mathematicians came to the aid of the Met," The New Yorker, 11 April 2005
• "InterViews: Mathematics, with Joel Cohen," National Academies website, 11 April 2005
• "Mathematical fluency is no easy equation," Orange County Register, 9 April 2005
• "Manuscripts as Fossils," Science News, 9 April 2005
• "Science Journal," The Wall Street Journal, 8 April 2005
• "Math teacher resets the learning curve," USA Today, 5 April 2005
• "Dem Geheimnis der Primzahlen auf der Spur": Review of Die Musik der Primzahlen (Music of the Primes), by Marcus du Sautoy, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 3 April 2005
• "Born to Count," Science, 1 April 2005
• "Math + Crime = Hit," Wired, April 2005
• "Eiffel Equation," Discover, April 2005
• "Stay Patient, Stay Alive," Discover, April 2005
• Review of Chance: A Guide to Gambling, Love, the Stock Market & Just About Everything Else, by Amir D. Aczel,Discover, April 2005

March 2005

• "Why W?" American Scientist, March-April 2005
• "Anthropology for Mathematicians": Review of Symmetry Comes of Age: The Role of Pattern in Culture edited by Dorothy K. Washburn and Donald W. Crowe, and Embedded Symmetries, Natural and Cultural edited by Dorothy K. Washburn, American Scientist, March-April 2005
• "The Man Who Defined Truth,": Review of Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic, by Anita Burdman Feferman and Solomon Feferman, American Scientist, March-April 2005
• Articles on Peter Lax Receiving the 2005 Abel Prize, March 2005
• "Proof and Beauty," The Economist, 31 March 2005
• "Dot.compass," Greater Boston, 28 March 2005
• "Student Scientists to Watch," Science News, 19 March 2005;
  "Meet the Best and the Brightest," Business Week, 28 March 2005
• "The never-ending story. A guide to the biggest idea in the Universe: infinity": Review of The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless, and Endless by John D. Barrow, Nature, 24 March 2005
• "Study Unravels the Mathematics of Wildfires," Scientific American, 22 March 2005
• "UW-Madison grad student makes math history," Wisconsin State Journal, 18 March 2005;
  "Classic maths puzzle cracked at last," New Scientist, 21 March 2005;
  "'Cranky' Proof Reveals Hidden Regularities," Science, 1 April 2005;
  "Greeley math whiz cracks old equation," The Greeley Tribune, 17 April 2005
• "New largest prime discovered," Science News, 19 March 2005
• "Count on this": Review of Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis, by Dan Rockmore, New Scientist, 19 March 2005
• "Artists on science: scientists on art," Nature, 17 March 2005
• "Math confusion setting in," The Boston Globe, 16 March 2005
• "Math competitors give no quarter," Providence Journal, 15 March 2005
• "Donald Knuth, Founding Artist of Computer Science": Interview with Donald Knuth, NPR's "Morning Edition," 14 March 2005
• "Mathematicians Get Crafty with Geometry": Interview with Daina Taimina and David Henderson, NPR's "All Things Considered," 13 March 2005
• "Crunch time": Review of Electronic Brains, by Mike Hally, New Scientist, 12 March 2005
• "QuickStudy: Wavelets," Computer World, 7 March 2005
• "Who Says a Woman Can't Be Einstein?," Time, 7 March 2005
• "Primed for Numbers," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 March 2005
• "Mathematics and Biology: New Challenges for Both Disciplines," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 March 2005
• "Flaw Found in Data-Protection Method," Science, 4 March 2005;
  "Chinese mathematician decodes two int'l cipher systems", People's Daily Online English, 29 March 2005
• "The Feynman File," Discover, March 2005

February 2005

• "Time Bandits," The New Yorker, 28 February 2005
• "Too much information," New Scientist, 26 February 2005
• "A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe": Interview with Roger Penrose, NPR's "Talk of the Nation," 25 February 2005
• "Das Wunderkind der Mathematik," Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 February 2005
• "So einfach ist es, einen Modetrend aufzuspüren," Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 20 February 2005
• "'Origins of Cyberspace' To Be Auctioned By Christie's," InformationWeek, 17 February 2005;
  "Relic of Computer History in New York Auction," Reuters, 18 February 2005
• "Ramanujan's 'Lost Notebook' Astounds Americans," INDOlink-NRI News, 18 February 2005
• "The spice of life," The Guardian, 17 February 2005
• "Math skills survive linguistic damage," news@nature.com, 14 February 2005;
  "Mathematics is a language on its own," The Economic Times Online, 17 February 2005
• Obituary of Gerard Debreu, Times Online, 15 February 2005
• "Origami as the Shape of Things to Come," New York Times, 15 February 2005
• "You do sum-thing to me," The Sun Newspaper Online, 13 February 2005;
  "Get your calculator, you've just pulled," Scotland on Sunday, 13 February 2005
• "Life on the Scales," Science News, 12 February 2005
• "Pomona's Prime Number," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 February 2005
• "Math luminary to show old masters' modern magic," Times of India, 9 February 2005
• "Doing the Numbers Carefully Adds Up to a Bit of Mystery," The New York Times, 7 February 2005
• "New findings super-size tsunami threat," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7 February 2005
• "Knot Divided in Snow," Science News Online, 5 February 2005
• "Murder by numbers": Review of The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez, The Guardian, 5 February 2005
• "Cyberdad": Review of Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener, by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, New Scientist, 5 February 2005
• "Math from the Ground Up," Science, 4 February 2005
• "Freudian quips: Mathematicians' jokes betray a deep-seated anxiety about the size of their proofs," Nature, 4 February 2005
• "The Eye of the Beholder": Review of Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe, by Leon M. Lederman and Christopher T. Hill, Discover, February 2005
• "Deconstructing Eiffel," Mechanical Engineering, February 2005

January 2005

• "Naming Names," American Scientist, January-February 2005
• "How to do an infinite number of things before breakfast," New Scientist, 29 January 2005
• "Wolf Prizes," Science, 28 January 2005
• "Learning from 100 Numbers," Science, 28 January 2005
• "Romanesque networks," Nature, 27 January 2005
• "Researchers explore mystery, and say gotcha," The Boston Globe, 27 January 2005;
  "Secrets of the Venus Flytrap Revealed," NPR's Morning Edition, 27 January 2005
• "Ein Diplomat mit Liebe für Zahlen und Schach," Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 January 2005
• "Summers contrite about remarks," The Boston Globe, 20 January 2005;
  "Summers storm," The Washington Post, 22 January 2005
• "When Laziness Pays," Science News, 15 January 2005
• "Hands-on Math Insights," Science News, 15 January 2005
• "Cultural Icons," Science, 14 January 2005
• "Caltech dons thinking cap for CBS: Math expert advises smart new TV series," Whittier Daily News, 9 January 2005
• "Bridging the gap," Nature, 6 January 2005
• "Go with the throw," New Scientist, 1 January 2005
• "Prime-Time News," Discover, January 2005
• More articles on the remarks by Harvard president Lawrence Summers, January and February 2005

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