THE BEST WRITING ON MATHEMATICS 2016

Introduction Mircea Pitici xi
Mathematics and Teaching, Hyman Bass 1
In Defense of Pure Mathematics, Daniel S. Silver 17
G. H. Hardy: Mathematical Biologist, Hannah Elizabeth Christenson and Stephan Ramon Garcia 27
The Reasonable Ineffectiveness of Mathematics, Derek Abbott 32
Stacking Wine Bottles Revisited, Burkard Polster 48
The Way the Billiard Ball Bounces, Joshua Bowman 66
The Intersection Game, Burkard Polster 77
Tonight! Epic Math Battles: Counting vs. Matching, Jennifer J. Quinn 86
Mathematicians Chase Moonshine's Shadow, Erica Klarreich 96
The Impenetrable Proof, Davide Castelvecchi 105
A Proof That Some Spaces Can't Be Cut, Kevin Hartnett 114
Einstein's First Proof, Steven Strogatz 122
Why String Theory Still Offers Hope We Can Unify Physics, Brian Greene 132
The Pioneering Role of the Sierpinski Gasket, Tanya Khovanova, Eric Nie, and Alok Puranik 140
Fractals as Photographs Marc Frantz 149
Math at the Met, Joseph Dauben and Marjorie Senechal 155
Common Sense about the Common Core, Alan H. Schoenfeld 187
Explaining Your Math: Unnecessary at Best, Encumbering at Worst, Katharine Beals and Barry Garelick 196
Teaching Applied Mathematics, David Acheson, Peter R. Turner, Gilbert Strang, and Rachel Levy 203
Circular Reasoning: Who First Proved that C Divided by d Is a Constant? David Richeson 224
A Medieval Mystery: Nicole Oresme's Concept of Curvitas, Isabel M. Serrano and Bogdan D. Suceava 238
The Myth of Leibniz's Proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Viktor Blåsjö 249
The Spirograph and Mathematical Models from Nineteenth-Century Germany, Amy Shell-Gellasch 261
What Does "Depth" Mean in Mathematics? John Stillwell 268
Finding Errors in Big Data, Marco Puts, Piet Daas, and Ton de Waal 291
Programs and Probability, Brian Hayes 300
Lottery Perception, Jorge Almeida 311
Why Acknowledging Uncertainty Can Make You a Better Scientist, Andrew Gelman 316
For Want of a Nail: Why Unnecessarily Long Tests May Be Impeding the Progress of Western Civilization, Howard Wainer and Richard Feinberg 321
How to Write a General Interest Mathematics Book, Ian Stewart 331
Contributors 345
Notable Writings 355
Acknowledgments 373
Credits 375

The year's finest mathematics writing from around the world
This annual anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2016 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else—and you don't need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today's hottest mathematical debates.
Here Burkard Polster shows how to invent your own variants of the Spot It! card game, Steven Strogatz presents young Albert Einstein's proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, Joseph Dauben and Marjorie Senechal find a treasure trove of math in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Andrew Gelman explains why much scientific research based on statistical testing is spurious. In other essays, Brian Greene discusses the evolving assumptions of the physicists who developed the mathematical underpinnings of string theory, Jorge Almeida examines the misperceptions of people who attempt to predict lottery results, and Ian Stewart offers advice to authors who aspire to write successful math books for general readers. And there's much, much more.
In addition to presenting the year's most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a bibliography of other notable writings and an introduction by the editor, Mircea Pitici. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us—and where it is headed.

Author
Mircea Pitici holds a PhD in mathematics education from Cornell University and is working on a master's degree in library and information science at Syracuse University. He has edited The Best Writing on Mathematics since 2010.