Check Out … Steven Strogatz

Here’s a little something to keep you busy until I post again. It’s a column by Steven Strogatz “professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University. In 2007 he received the Communications Award, a lifetime achievement award for the communication of mathematics to the general public. He previously taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received the E.M. Baker Award, an institute-wide teaching prize selected solely by students. “Chaos,” his series of 24 lectures on chaos theory, was filmed and produced in 2008 by The Teaching Company. He is the author, most recently, of “The Calculus of Friendship,” the story of his 30-year correspondence with his high school calculus teacher.”

So what does that have to do with us???

Click Here to Find Out

Baseball/Numb3rs/Bill Nye

Yes! Opening Day is just over the horizon. It’s baseball time again!. Fantasy Teams. Picks for best of the season. I love this time of year.

Numb3rs had a show in 2005 that’s still one of my favorites. It had Bill Nye pitching a disastrous curve ball to Larry. And a steroid-detecting statistical program developed by Oswald Kittner. With that program, the fictional Oswald could tell when a player was headed for troubles. But I digress.

It seems there’s an Associate Prof of Mathematical Sciences at New Jersey Institute of Technology – Bruce Bukiet – who uses applied mathematics to compute the best teams of the season in the AL and NL. No surprise that the Yankees are expected to reign supreme in the AL East while the hapless Mets could place 3rd in the NL East.

Bukiet is a Mets fan – nobody’s perfect – and posts his method on his gambling site for scholarly purposes. He also uses mathematical modeling for research into things like the healing of wounds. You can see the press release behind this post here and his baseball picks here.

Meanwhile? I’m looking forward to a terrific season!

And we’ll be comparing actual to predicted results throughout the season.

Play Ball!