Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

One of my favorite examples of "you would never see this on American TV" is the 2009 anime Kemono no Sou-ja Erin , which tells the story of a girl in a Medieval-like fantasy world who learns to communicate with giant wolf/eagle creatures through - *gasp* - science! The novel the series was based on is now available in English as The Beast Player . My oldest niece got a copy for Christmas. There's a passage in the book, after the main character Erin has graduated from "beast doctor" school and become a teacher herself. Her mentor tells her, "The knowledge we teach is simply the truth as we know it at a particular time. What we believe to be true now may be exposed as error through the discoveries of succeeding generations. That's how human knowledge has been renewed throughout the ages. Remind your students of this every chance you get. A good teacher is not one who never doubts, but rather one who strives to keep on learning despite the doub...

My 14 year-old niece likes using "OK Boomer." I'm told she even got into an argument with her dad about it. But when I pointed out that - unlike her dad, who is definitely Gen-X - I'm old enough to be considered a Boomer, depending on which social scientist you ask, she replied, "Boomer is a state of mind." Honestly, there have been more than a few times when I've been tempted to say "OK Boomer" myself. I've even brought it up on social media, which earned me quick and vigorous rebukes from some people I'm otherwise on friendly terms with, quick to defend their age group. Folks, my niece is right - "Boomer" is a state of mind, one that can be rejected by people my age and older, and one that can be embraced by people younger than I am. Yesterday, I listened to a fascinating - but depressing - episode of Ezra Klein's podcast, featuring energy and climate writer Dave Roberts, talking about "Republicans vs. the...

I usually do my writing warmup by hand. It's something I learned many years ago from the book, The Artist's Way , and not only does it get my creative energies focused, but it's also helped me work through some pretty thorny issues at times. Today I'm trying to get the next-to-last chapter started on my latest mathematical biography, Ada Lovelace: Programming the Future . Proper biographers research their subjects for years before they start writing, but I'd never be able to do a set of six books that way, so I'm researching as I go. It's kind of like hacking out a new trail through the wilderness. I know my destination, and I have an overall idea of how to get there, but I don't know about the unexpected twists and turns, boulders, fallen trees, and other small details along the way. Not until I get there. At the start of each new chapter, I have to scope out the terrain a bit before I can move forward again. In another example of "You ...

We're coming to the end of Advent, and with it the end of my self-imposed ban on making political posts on social media. That was more difficult than I expected, but it showed me some interesting things and made me look at my motivations. At the end of Lent last year, I kept up my ban on watching cable news. I don't want to keep up this ban as well, but I do want to do things a bit differently. The most important thing I have to remember - that we should all remember, actually - is to stay focused. Not posting about politics made me want to read less politics, too. I thought more about what I was really interested in, and less about what was just trying to draw my attention. So much of what goes on is just noise, spewed out there to confuse us or inflame us or keep us from noticing anything else. The last thing I should be doing is adding to it for no good reason. When I do focus my attention, two major subjects emerge as most important to me. The subject most on...