Jon was born and raised in Minnesota, learned mathematics at Gustavus Adolphus College, in Budapest, and finally earned his PhD at the University of Oregon. After positions at the Universities of Toronto, Georgia, and Oklahoma, he's now on the faculty at Oregon State University. He thinks it a shame how badly math fares in the modern educational-industrial complex and occasionally tries to do something about it when not indulging his other interests. Email: jonkujawa@gmail.com
by Jonathan Kujawa Mathematicians have a soft spot in their hearts for mathematical trifles. These beguiling little puzzles are more amusing than important, and also often devilishly hard. These are the sorts of math problems professional mathematicians are embarrassed to admit they spend time thinking about (but would be the first to tell you if…
by Jonathan Kujawa On “How Not to be Wrong” by Jordan Ellenberg. I have to admit something. When I travel I cringe on the inside when the person sitting next to me asks what I do for a living. The arc of the conversation invariably follows one of a few paths. On the very rare…
by Jonathan Kujawa In September the New York Times reported on an interesting tidbit in the annual budget request by the National Security Agency (NSA). You can read the full NYT article here, but the relevant lines are highlighted in this image from the NYT's article: NSA's Budget Request (image by the NYT) The NSA…
by Jonathan Kujawa A few months ago I wrote about one of my favorite results in math: Ramsey's Theorem. It tells us that when we look at things at a large enough scale complete chaos is impossible. That is, if we look hard enough we inevitably find patterns. Call it the Conspiracy Theory Theorem. Ramsey's…
by Jonathan Kujawa Yakov Sinai On March 26th it was announced that Yakov Sinai, a mathematician at Princeton University and the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, had won the 2014 Abel Prize. The Abel prize was established in 2001 by the government of Norway and was first given 2003. Unlike the more famous Fields Medal,…
by Jonathan Kujawa A few years ago I decided I should learn a few card tricks. Like tying a necktie, eating with chopsticks, or building a fire, it seemed like the sort of thing everyone should have in their skill-set. As a person with mediocre dexterity I need tricks which don't depend on slight-of-hand. Fortunately…
by Jonathan Kujawa A few weeks ago the Numberphile website posted a short video. The video discussed an “astounding” sum and got considerable press (the video has 1,523,719 views so far). It appeared on both Slate and 3QD. The sum? It's: 3QD included links to the firestorm the video created (I know, I know, I…
by Jonathan Kujawa There is a delightful episode of Radiolab entitled “Emergence''. In it they look at the remarkably complicated structures which can emerge from large groups of remarkably dumb individuals each doing their own thing. You see this in ant colonies, flocks of birds, human cities, capitalist marketplaces, and the human brain. Remarkably, we…