batchimeg tuvshintugs
There is a Women's Grandmaster of chess named Batchimeg Tuvshintugs.
the loss of privacy
While Americans bemoan their loss of privacy — and allow me to ululate right along with you — it is helpful to recall our own role in this gradual process of, shall we say, regurgitative knowingness.That is, our apparent willingness to show and tell every little thing in the quest to be known. Fame and Celebrity are, by comparison, higher callings than whatever compels strangers to display, say, their tongues (or other points of anatomical interest) in the public forum of social media. These acts of baboonery, not so feigned after all, are unsubtly reminiscent of chimpanzees who, unconsciously aware of the camera’s hostile intrusion, try to offend it with grimaces, grins and lingual extrusions.
Now, suddenly we’re offended that national security operatives are following our behavior patterns?
twin primes
On April 17, a paper arrived in the inbox of Annals of Mathematics, one of the discipline’s preeminent journals. Written by a mathematician virtually unknown to the experts in his field — a 50-something lecturer at the University of New Hampshire named Yitang Zhang — the paper claimed to have taken a huge step forward in understanding one of mathematics’ oldest problems, the twin primes conjecture.
Editors of prominent mathematics journals are used to fielding grandiose claims from obscure authors, but this paper was different. Written with crystalline clarity and a total command of the topic’s current state of the art, it was evidently a serious piece of work, and the Annals editors decided to put it on the fast track.
Just three weeks later — a blink of an eye compared to the usual pace of mathematics journals — Zhang received the referee report on his paper.
“The main results are of the first rank,” one of the referees wrote. The author had proved “a landmark theorem in the distribution of prime numbers.”
More on twin primes...
Prime numbers are abundant at the beginning of the number line, but they grow much sparser among large numbers. Of the first 10 numbers, for example, 40 percent are prime — 2, 3, 5 and 7 — but among 10-digit numbers, only about 4 percent are prime. For over a century, mathematicians have understood how the primes taper off on average: Among large numbers, the expected gap between prime numbers is approximately 2.3 times the number of digits; so, for example, among 100-digit numbers, the expected gap between primes is about 230.
But that’s just on average. Primes are often much closer together than the average predicts, or much farther apart. In particular, “twin” primes often crop up — pairs such as 3 and 5, or 11 and 13, that differ by only 2. And while such pairs get rarer among larger numbers, twin primes never seem to disappear completely (the largest pair discovered so far is 3,756,801,695,685 x 2666,669 – 1 and 3,756,801,695,685 x 2666,669 + 1).
toxic news
In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking. That's why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how toxic news can be.
Agreed.
airports
NOT ONE American airport cracked the top ten in a ranking of the planet's best airports, released last week by Skytrax, a company specialising in airline and airport research. In fact American airports didn't even feature in the top 25—Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International was the first to appear, squeaking in at number 30. Denver and San Francisco came 36th and 40th, and at number 48, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson
No surprise there. American airports are so... utilitarian, inefficient, and run-down. Shoddy, even.
Changi is amazing.
wright on volf
From an interview with NT Wright:
What is the best Christian book you’ve read?The best theological book I’ve read in the last 20 years is without doubt Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf. He takes on some of the major issues in our society and culture and wrestles with them from a deeply Christian perspective. It’s a work of great maturity and wisdom.
