Math Digest Summaries Media Coverage of Math

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Math Digest Contributors Mike Breen, AMS Annette Emerson, AMS Allyn Jackson, AMS Rafe Jones, Brown University Kathryn Leonard, Brown University Benjamin Stein, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Links are provided to Math Digest summaries.
Items without links have not been summarized in Math Digest.

2001 Articles

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December 2001

• "It All Adds Up": Review of Science and an African Logic, by Helen Verran, CalendarLive on latimes.com, 23 December 2001
• "A Better Golf Ball," The New York Times Magazine, 9 December 2001
• "Steganography Goes Digital," The New York Times Magazine, 9 December 2001
• "Transcending Equations," The New York Times Magazine, 9 December 2001
• "Sines in terse verse," Nature, 20/27 December 2001
• "Fractals in pixellated video feedback," by Johannes Courtial, Jonathan Leach, and Miles J. Padgett. Nature, 20/27 December 2001, page 864.
• "Sign of Supersymmetry Fades Away," Science, 21 December 2001
• "Why We Take Risks," Discover Magazine, December 2001
• "How Math Put It All in Perspective," International Herald Tribune, December 15-16, 2001
• "Priming the Pump," Science, 7 December 2001; "Searchers capture a champion megaprime," Science News, 15 December 2001
• "Placentals' Family Tree Drawn and Quartered," Science, 14 December 2001
• "NSF Initiative Gives Field a Chance to Show Relevance," Science, 14 December, 2001
• "Glänzende Ideen, brillant ins Bild gesetzt" ("Shining Ideas, Brilliantly Depicted"), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 December 2001

November 2001

• "Third Base" by American Scientist, November/December 2001
• "Sizing Up the Nest," Science, 30 November 2001
• "The Crystal Ball of Chaos," Nature, 29 November 2001
• "Columbia U. math prof lends hand in new Russell Crowe film," Columbia Daily Spectator, 28 November 2001
• "Statistics: Tool for Life Gets Short Shrift," The New York Times, 28 November 2001
• "Water drop holds a trillion computers," Nature Science Update, 22 November 2001
• "A small slice through space": Review of The Universe in a Nutshell, by Stephen Hawking, New Scientist, 17 November 2001
• "Mini maths masters," New Scientist, 17 November 2001
• "Shuttered Math Site Reopens," Science, 16 November 2001
• "Playing by quantum rules," Nature, 15 November 2001
• "The world of testable truths": Review of On Science, by Brian Ridley, Nature, 15 November 2001
• "Science media center launches," Nature Science Update, 15 November 2001
• "Round the Twist," New Scientist, 10 November 2001
• "Der Sinn des Lebens in Schwarzwald," Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 4 November 2001
• "A Matter of Choice," Lingua Franca, November 2001
• "Pollock's Fractals," Discover, November 2001

October 2001

• "Les mathematiques, discipline malheureusement negligee" ("Mathematics, a sadly neglected discipline"), Le Monde, 8 October 2001.
• "Six Degrees of Uncertainty," Science, 26 October 2001
• "Uncertainities Plague Projections of vCJD Toll," Science, 26 October, 2001
• "Cryptography on the front line," Nature, 25 October 2001
• Review of The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal, by James Franklin, Science, 19 October 2001
• "Where drunkards hang out," Nature, 18 October 2001
• "Compass," Science, 12 October 2001
• "Magical numbers in nature," Nature Science Update, 12 October 2001
• "Unweaving the whirls," Nature, 11 October 2001

September 2001

• "Millennium Legacies" American Scientist, September-October 2001
• Reviews of four books: The Hole in the Universe, The Book of Nothing, In Code, and The Lady Tasting Tea, American Scientist, September-October 2001
• "Revolutionary Measures": Review of The Measure of the World, by Denis Guedj, New Scientist, 29 September 2001
• "Beyond Time and Space": Three articles about cosmology, New Scientist, 29 September 2001
• "Soft cell's hard shell explained," Nature Science Update, 27 September 2001
• "All creatures great and small," Nature, 27 September 2001
• Review of Mathematical Mountaintops: The Five Most Famous Problems of all Time, by John Casti, Nature, 27 September 2001
• "The salesman and the tourist," Nature, 27 September 2001
• "Do power laws imply self-regulation?" Nature, 27 September 2001
• "Flirting With Catastrophe, " Science, 14 September 2001
• "Let's Have Sum Fun," Discover, September 2001

August 2001

• "Avoiding ambiguity," Nature, 9 August 2001
• "International Career Centre Special Report", Nature,9 August 2001
• "Design by numbers", Nature, 9 August 2001
• "Down and out in Murray Hill", Nature, 9 August 2001
• "Faster, better, cheaper genotyping", Nature, 9 August 2001
• "Stats say aye to ID eye," Nature Science Update, 8 August 2001
• "Big Brother cameras on watch for criminals", USA Today, 2 August 2001
• In Code, new book announcement, Discover, August 2001

July 2001

• "Top Young Problem Solvers Vie for Quiet Glory" Science,July 27, 2001
• "Not quite the whole story": Review of The Story of Mathematics, by Richard Mankiewicz, Nature, 19 July 2001
• "You can't lose": Review of Calculated Bets, by Steven Skiena, New Scientist, 14 July 2001
• "Signed, sealed, and delivered," New Scientist, 14 July 2001
• Review of Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So, by Ian Stewart, International Herald Tribune, 10 July 2001
• "Delia Derbyshire,"Guardian Unlimited, 7 July 2001
• "A Ministry in Maths," Guardian Unlimited, 6 July 2001
• "The Calculus of Passion": Review of The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter, by Benjamin Woolley, American Scientist, July-August 2001
• "Embodied Mathematics": Review of Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being, by George Lakoff and Rafael E. Nunez, American Scientist, July-August 2001
• "The Intrinsic Variability of Nature": Review of Chance in Biology: Using Probability to Explore Nature, by Mark W. Denny and Steven Gaines. American Scientist, July-August 2001
• "Roboselection": Review of Evolutionary Robotics: The Biology, Intelligence, and Technology of Self-Organizing Machines, by Stefano Nolfi and Dario Floreano, American Scientist, July-August 2001
• "Gambler's Paradox," Scientific American, July 2001
• "Nature's Detangler," Discover, July 2001
• "Virtual You," Discover, July 2001

June 2001

• "Secrets of an Acid Head," New Scientist, 23 June 2001
• "It's chaos out there," New Scientist, 23 June 2001
• "Shaping a Universe," Science, 22 June 2001
• "Math Trick May Cause Tension Headache," Science, 22 June 2001
• "Sure, It's Rocket Science, But Who Needs Scientists?", The New York Times, 17 June 2001
• "In search of perfection": Review of Quantum Mechanics: Symbolism of Atomic Measurements, by Julian Schwinger, Nature, 14 June 2001
• "Melifluous mathematics: Helaman Ferguson's topological sculpture," Science in Culture, Nature, 14 June 2001
• "Mathematical model could clarify arms race," Correspondence, Nature, 14 June 2001
• "Mind Over Matter: Leaders' Poor Math Skills Add Up to Bad Public Policy," Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2001
• "Physics in the Noise," Nature, 7 June 2001
• Review of Thinks... by David Lodge, The Washington Post, 3 June 2001 "Political Calculus," SIAM News, June 2001
• "Soccer or Nascar, It's All the Same," Discover, June 2001
• "Forecast: Hazy (with 50% chance of error)," Discover, June 2001
• "Herd on Wall Street," Discover, June 2001

May 2001

• "Still waiting for the revolution": Review of The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century, by David Salsburg, Nature, 31 May 2001
• "Formally speaking," Nature, 31 May 2001
• "The Science of Elections," Science, 25 May 2001
• "Market calms before storm," Nature Science Update, 25 May 2001
• "Match of the data," Nature Science Update, 23 May 2001
• "Hopping through the Mathiverse": Review of Flatterland: Like Flatland Only More So, by Ian Stewart, Nature, 17 May 2001
• "Beyond the Spherical Cow," Nature, 10 May 2001
• "Sorry, You've Got The Wrong Number," an interview with Joel Best, New York Times, 26 May 2001 and
  "Telling the Truth About Damned Lies and Statistics," by Joel Best, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 May 2001
• "Number Fun With Ben," Science, 4 May 2001
• "Dispute over digital music muzzles academic," Nature, 3 May 2001, and
  "Music Industry Strikes Sour Note for Academics," Science, 4 May 2001
• "Here be no dragons," Nature, 3 May 2001
• "Population Growth, Technology and Tricky Graphs," American Scientist, May-June, 2001
• "A Sine on the Road to Mecca," American Scientist, May-June, 2001
• "Computing Comes to Life" by Brian Hayes. American Scientist, May-June, 2001.
• "Tributes column," (includes Alain Connes wins Crafoord prize, Claude Shannon obituary), Discover, May 2001
• "Math Homework 4,000 Years Ago," Discover, May 2001

April 2001

• "When space and time conspire": Review of Complex Systems: Chaos and Beyond, by Kunihiko Kaneko and Ichiro Tsuda, Nature, 26 April 2001
• "Measuring the Past," Nature, 26 April 2001
• "Long-distance quantum leap," Nature Science Update, 26 April 2001
• "Claude E. Shannon (1916-2001)," Science, 20 April 2001
• "Algorithms of Boundless Beauty": Review of Arabesques: Decorative Art in Morocco, by Jean-Marc Castéra, Science, 20 April 2001
• "Intensified Battle Against Foot and Mouth Appears to Pay Off," Science, 20 April 2001
• "Souped-Up Software Gets a Virtual Test," Science, 20 April 2001
• "Slaves to Logic": Reviews of The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing, by Martin Davis, and Computers Ltd: What They Really Can't Do, by David Harel, Nature, 19 April 2001
• "Strings and things," Nature, 19 April 2001
• "Narrative Plus Math Equals Sales," Publishers Weekly, 16 April 2001
• "Making Mathematics Part of the Equation of Life," Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 April 2001
• "Location Neurons Do Advanced Math," Science, 13 April 2001
• "Origins of Inspiration: a four-dimensional view of two twentieth-century icons": Review of Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty that Causes Havoc, by Arthur I. Miller, Nature, 12 April 2001
• "Nothing to It!": Review of The Book of Nothing, by John D. Barrow, Nature, 12 April 2001
• "Bush favours research at Pentagon and NIH," Nature, 12 April 2001
• "Formula for 'Clippy' originated centuries ago," cnn.com, 12 April 2001
• "Claude Shannon (1916-2001)", Nature, 12 April 2001
• "Why Mathematicians Now Care About Their Hat Color," New York Times, 10 April 2001
• "Rebel Code: Linus Torvalds, Open Source, & War for Soul of Software," Guardian Ltd., 10 April 2001
• "Math over Reading," abcnews.com, 08 April 2001
• "Lasers show atmosphere differs from models," by S. Perkins, Science News, 07 April 2001
• "From Brawn to Brains," by Jennifer Yachnin, Chronicle of Higher Education, 06 April 2001
• "A scientist to count on": Review of The Hilbert Challenge: A Perspective on Twentieth-Century Mathematics, by Jeremy J. Gray. Nature, 5 April 2001
• "Long waits will always try patients," Nature Science Update, 5 April 2001
• "Tests show U.S. children lag behind in math, science," by Greg Toppo, The Nando Times, 04 April 2001
• "Fractal Find," an April Fool's Day piece by John Paulos, abcnews.com, 01 April 2001
• "Much Ado About Flapping," Discover, April 2001
• Review of The Story of Mathematics, by Richard Mankiewicz, Discover, April 2001
• "Why We Go Up," by Robert Kunzig. Discover, April 2001, pages 21-22 
• "Roll Over, Newton," by Curtis Rist, Discover,April 2001

March 2001

• "How to Count," American Scientist, March-April 2001
• "Newton's Rational Mechanics": Review of Newton's Gift, by David Berlinski, American Scientist, March-April 2001
• Review of The Universal Computer, by Martin Davis, American Scientist, March-April 2001
• "Cryptologists Discover Flaw in E-mail Security System," by James Glanz. New York Times, 21 March 2001.
• "Science Talent Search winners shine bright" Science News, 17 March 2001
• "Why Some Numbers Are Only Very Good Guesses," New York Times, 11 March 2001
• Review of Computers, Ltd.: What They Really Can't Do, by David Harel, Science, 9 March 2001
• "Networking can be hazardous," Nature Science Update, 9 March 2001
• "Math Push Adds Up for Chief of Science Foundation," Los Angeles Times, 8 March 2001
• "Sparks fly when artists and mathematicians meet," Boston Globe, 6 March 2001
• "A House Divided," Science, 2 March 2001
• "Safe Against Cycling: Researchers Confirm Invulnerability of RSA Cryptosystem," by Barry Cipra. SIAM News, March 2001

February 2001

• "The Key Vanishes: Scientist Outlines Unbreakable Code," New York Times, 20 February 2001
• "Secrets of sports thrills spilled," Nature Science Update, 19 February 2001
• "The beanbag lives on," by James F. Crow. Nature, 15 February 2001, page 771.
• "Are you ready for the revolution?," Nature, 15 February 2001
• "Come on feel the noise," Nature Science Update, 13 February 2001
• "Math's Unsolved Mysteries," Science, 9 February 2001
• "Loopy Solution Brings Infinite Relief," Science, 9 February 2001
• "Newtonia on the Net," Science, 9 February 2001
• Two Reviews of Virus Dynamics, by Martin A. Nowak and Robert M. May, Science, 9 February 2001, and Nature, 22 March 2001
• "What Good is Math? An Answer for Jocks," New YorkTimes, 3 February 2001
• "Virtual Molecules Nail Bacteria's Weapon," Science, 2 February 2001
• "French Mathematician Wins Crafoord Prize." Science, 2 February 2001

January 2001

• "The Weatherman," American Scientist, January-February 2001
• "Navigating your mind," The Economist, 25 January 2001
• "U.S. Census 2000: An Update," Science, 12 January 2001
• "The Joy of Math": An interview with Keith Devlin, Discover, January 2001
• "How Maxwell made his mark": Review of Electrodynamics from Ampère to Einstein,Nature, 18 January 2001
• "The relationship between matter and life," by Rodney Brooks. Nature, 18 January 2001
• "Modelling cellular behaviour," by Drew Endy, et al. Nature, 18 January 2001
• "You can't have it all," by Neil S. Greenspan. Nature, 11 January 2001
• "Algebra Project: Bob Moses Empowers Students," New York Times, 7 January 2001
• "Evolution of Universal Grammar," by Martin A. Nowak, et al. Science, 5 January 2001
• "Stockbrokers may act like sheep," Nature Science Update, 3 January 2001
• "Against All Odds": Review of Women Becoming Mathematicians: Creating a Professional Identity in Post-World War II America, American Scientist, January-February 2001
• "Complexity's Business Model," Scientific American, January 2001

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