Carnival of Mathematics VIII
Is over at Geomblog. Take a look. Suresh has managed to organize the carnival around “explanations.” Did he contact contributors in advance? I don’t know. But it’s nice to see an overall theme.
Not only does Mark Chu-Carrol have his regular excellent and clear explanation of a topic in undergraduate mathematics (this week: Cantor’s diagonalization), but it seems that the majority of contributors have explanations of topics for this edition. Michi, a grad student in mathematics, visits a high school once a week, and describes the super-challenging problems he does with an advanced group there. Andy translates computability problems into cats and dogs and sewage and mine shafts, for the benefit and amusement of, I assume, his peers and us, Leo discusses the work of his undergraduates, and of course there’s me and Dave Marain, Dan Greene, and more and more and more.
(I will be hosting one of these math carnivals, soon…)
JD2718 
Actually, it’s spelled “Michi” or “Mikael”.
And I’m a grad student, not a professor.
Well, maybe you should be a professor! I’ll fix both mistakes, right away. Sorry about that, and thanks for pointing them out!
(and for putting up posts that make me think!)
Actually no, I didn’t contact anyone. Once I started reading the submissions, the theme became obvious :)
jd: Thanks – I’m sure I will become a professor at some point; but first I have this whole rite of researcherdom to go through, and several years of suffering and a sense of wonder before I’m trapped in the professorial management trap at the end of my career. ;)
If I’m allowed to nitpick – it’s not groups, and it’s not -my- work either. I deliberately picked a subject I have some sort of chance of explaining to high school students; my own research lies FAR beyond that.
To tell the truth, even my own advisor has his task cut out to keep up at all with what I’m telling him…
Well-done, Suresh! and Mikael, of course you are allowed to nit-pick – it is your work, it is important. But the work is with a group of students, no? (the topic is groupoids, but I don’t know what those are). So, anything that needs fixing, tell. I would rather be corrected than be wrong. And yes, I caught that “end of one’s career” throwaway line…. ;-)
Oooooooooh, -that-‘s what your “advanced group” meant. I misread it, sorry. ;)