Whats up at the Spot?

In today's blog, a recap of MathWeek, Thinking Spot updates, and some book recommendations for these hot and hazy summer days.

Math Week : Was a lot of fun! Thank you all for the engagement and interesting pointers. We discovered a bunch of new and unexpected places where Math shows up :

1. Math and Music: Why do we like Music? Its the Math: https://www.thethinkingspot.us/post/music-is-math

2. Math in Medicine: I recently heard a phrase that threw me - "Diabetes is a really highly numeric disease." It's from a book by Ellen Peters – Innumeracy in the wild. She defines 5 levels of numeracy and what tasks people can do at each level. Apparently, only 9% of the US population is at level 4/5 and are capable of handling all of the numeric tasks that are involved in a chronic disease like diabetes – things like calculating the carbs in food and drink, glucose meter reading, adjusting insulin based on carb and exercise, etc. I certainly didn’t think of diabetes that way before but makes sense, right?

3. Math and Wikipedia: The graph theory of Math deals with any type of networked structure. The theory helps explain the different properties of the network such as the shortest distance between two nodes. One example, you've probably heard of is the 6 degrees of separation in human social networks, but have you heard of the 6 degrees of Wikipedia? Apparently, you can apply the same concepts for getting from one Wikipedia page to another. Check it out - www.sixdegressofwikipedia.com, it’s a fun little exercise.

4. Math in Art: Specifically, the number phi/the golden ratio/1.61803. Found a good explanation of the ratio here: https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/golden-ratio.html. A general web search for golden ratio examples in art and architecture also turns up many familiar works. It's amazing how it shows up everywhere and makes anything using the ratio more aesthetically pleasing. A good trick for the artistically challenged like me!

5. Mathematical Oncologist: Here's another term that I had not heard before – Mathematical Oncologist. A cross-disciplinary approach to cancer research that is gathering steam over the last decade or so. Their goal? Precision cancer medicine – tailored to each individual's tumor. https://www.quantamagazine.org/trachette-jackson-fights.../

6. Math in everyday life: Finally, we acknowledge that we use Math in day-day life all the time, whether it's counting the ounces for a recipe or steps to 10K for the day or counting the minutes before the end of the office day! Math is everywhere.

All books referenced during the week can be found on our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/lists/thinking-spot-math-week

Other Interesting Links that were shared:

• The R Project for Statistical Computing

• http://mathcenter.oxford.emory.edu/site/math125/fibonacciRabbits/

• https://nautil.us/issue/102/hidden-truths/the-math-of-living-things

• https://www.livescience.com/48674-mathematician-chef-culinary-creations.html

• https://www.wired.com/2015/03/mathematics-food-pairing-indian-cuisine/

Thinking Spot update:

We're making progress, slowly but surely. In the last month, we have added :

1. A working online science book shop - multiple ways to buy books through our site.

   1. Every week, a selection of newly published books are updated on the site in a variety of genres. We now have over 150 books in over 20 genres such as - Mathematics, Neuroscience, Psychology, Science History, Juvenile, and Young Adult science, and science-fiction, among others.

   2. For all other print books - We have partnered with bookshop for the online purchase of ANY book not found on our site. Bookshop purchases benefit independent bookstores everywhere, your support of that site helps independent bookstores compete with the Amazon juggernaut.

   3. eBooks and audiobooks can also be purchased from the site now via our partnership with Hummingbird.

2. Social media: Facebook (@thethinkingspot), Twitter(@thinkingspotus), Instagram(@thinkingspotus), and LinkedIn(The Thinking Spot) accounts are now live. Catch updates and fun events like MathWeek, wherever you are.

3. Blog posts go out to all subscribers of the blog on the site every week - go ahead and subscribe to get these updates straight in your inbox. This month, guest bloggers talked about Math in music, procrastination, and disaster preparedness.

4. Physical location search is still in progress. We are getting close and hope to announce the site soon!

Summer Book Recommendations

As you head out to those summer vacations, don't forget to pack one (or more) of these and come back smarter than when you left:

https://bookshop.org/lists/thinkingspot-summer-2021-favorites

Have a wonderful week!