MAA Math Alert - January 2010

News and Views

New Media Coverage of 2010 Joint Mathematics Meetings: This year's JMM was covered on flickr, twitter, and several blogs. Check out the coverage on our comprehensive media page here.

April is Mathematics Awareness Month: This year's theme is Mathematics and Sports. Check out the website here.

Check out the Top 10 Bestselling MAA Books of 2009: /news/121609bestsellers.html

Art Benjamin Faces off with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report
The mathemagician will be interviewed by the king of late night fake comedy news shows on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.

Latest News from MAA Public Policy: On Jan 19, the House Committee on Science and Technology announced its agenda for the second session of the 111th Congress. The agenda includes a strong push to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act before Memorial Day. Passed in 2007, COMPETES provides significant investment in STEM education from kindergarten to graduate school and postdoctoral education.Read More.

Application Deadlines for the MAA Grant Programs: Deadlines for the MAA grant programs for underrepresented groups are approaching. Please check Women in Math and Underrepresented Minorities in Math (Applications for both due February 12, 2010), as well as National Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (Applications due February 26, 2010) for application details.

Alice's Wonderland Is a World of Absurd Mathematics: A recent article for New Scientist explores the story and how Carroll, a mathematician at Christ Church College, used some his most popular characters as vehicles to criticize 19th century mathematicians. Read More

College and University Administration Sites for the American Mathematics Competitions: There is still time to register your college or University to be an administration site for the MAA's 2010 American Mathematics Competitions AMC 10 and AMC 12 contests. The date is February 24, 2010. Institutions that have been administration sites in the past have found it to be a great way to attract potential students, to showcase your department, and an effective tool for outreach to high schools in the area. It's easy, step-by-step instructions for how to register and prepare are on the AMC website, or contact the AMC office at amcinfo@maa.org or 800-527-3690.

There's Real Math to Cutting Fair Slices of Pizza: Rick Mabry and Paul Deiermann can't share a pizza without discussing the mathematics of how to slice it up properly. Read More

George Csicsery and "Hard Problems" Highlighted in SF Film Magazine: SF360.org, the San Francisco Film Society's online magazine, featured an article about local filmmaker George Csicsery, whose documentary "Hard Problems" was shown at the 2010 Joint Mathematics Meetings.Read More

Haven't Seen Hard Problems Yet? The MAA-produced documentary is playing on PBS stations across the country. Can't find your station on our list? Contact your local PBS station and ask them to put Hard Problems on their schedule.

Featured Articles

Devlin's Angle by Keith Devlin, "Repeated addition - one more spin": Keith Devlin further discusses the clear distinction between multiplication and repeated addition and gives the answers to last month's "Strictly for the Birds" puzzles. Read More

How Euler Did It by Ed Sandifer, "Euler as a Teacher - Part 1": Ed Sandifer examines the question, "What would it have been like to be a student of Leonhard Euler?" Read More

New from the MAA

2010 Annual Catalog of MAA Publications is Now Online: View the catalog here.

The December 2009/January 2010 Edition of MAA Focus Is Now Online: View the MAA's newsmagazine here.

Renew Your MAA Membership: Have you renewed your membership? The MAA now offers an electronic membership which gives you access to all three of our outstanding journals, American Mathematical Monthly, College Mathematics Journal and Mathematics Magazine! To take advantage of this option simply select it when you renew your membership

Renew online today or by calling 1-800-331-1622.

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