Tag Mathematics
UW mathematician on NOVA
Appearing on the PBS program "Nova," UW–Madison professor and math expert Jordan Ellenberg explains how understanding simple facts about probability can help people in their everyday lives. "Prediction by the Numbers" airs Wednesday, Feb. 28, at 8 p.m. CST.
UW-Madison researchers tackle bias in algorithms
If you’ve ever applied for a loan or checked your credit score, algorithms have played a role in your life. You might assume that computers remove human bias from decision-making, but research has shown that is not true.
Women in the math department find strength in numbers
More female mathematicians teach, mentor and conduct research at UW–Madison than at nearly any other major math department in the country.
Professor: Use math to pick your bracket winners. Really.
It's more than picking the teams with the most ferocious mascots. When picking your brackets for the NCAA basketball tournament, Engineering Professor Laura Albert McLay says you can use math. The Markov Chain, for instance. Also, she spins a pretty mean basketball.
Video: I calculate, therefore I am: Mixing math and philosophy
By double majoring in math and philosophy, Hannah DeBrine says she learns both kinds of truth: Logical truth, and individual people's truth. Even if a good philosophy class ends with more confusion than it started with.
Squished cells could shape design of synthetic materials
Nobody knew what would happen if something soft and squishy like a synthetic vesicle got into the mix.
UW–Madison mathematician wins prestigious Packard Fellowship
Melanie Matchett Wood, a University of Wisconsin–Madison assistant professor of mathematics whose research takes new approaches to classic questions of number theory, is one of 18 early career scientists from around the United States named a Packard Fellow for Science and Engineering.
Bracketology 101: What McLay reads in the seeds
Will a No. 5 seed lose to a No. 12? Will No. 1 seed Wisconsin make it all the way to the Final Four for the second year in a row? One could guess the answers to these key questions before March Madness begins in earnest, but there are much better ways to fill out NCAA brackets, according to UW–Madison’s resident bracketologist, Laura McLay, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering.
Report, experts analyze surging STEM activity at UW–Madison
A recent report on instructional activity in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines at the University of Wisconsin–Madison shows significant advances in enrollment and degrees since 2000, which campus experts attribute to a number of factors, including job placement, greater career opportunities and enhanced teaching methods.
Hans Schneider, leading mathematician, dies
Hans Schneider, the UW–Madison James Joseph Sylvester professor emeritus of mathematics who devoted his life to the revival of the classical field of linear algebra, died of esophageal cancer Tuesday, Oct. 28. He was 87.
Improved computing provides a better look at the cosmos
Building a neutrino telescope - a unique instrument that detects extremely small, high energy particles - out of 5,000 optical sensors embedded in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, a tremendous engineering feat, was just the first challenge.
Swimming through complex bodily fluids gets simpler
It's an uncomfortable truth of life that our bodily fluids are chock full of microscopic swimming organisms - maybe even more uncomfortable to researchers that those little swimmers do laps faster than the theories describing their motion would allow.
Math professor to join author and actress on ‘TODAY’
Jordan Ellenberg, a University of Wisconsin–Madison mathematics professor, is slated to appear Thursday on NBC’s “TODAY” show alongside fellow author Danica McKellar, more widely recognized as the actress who played Winnie Cooper on the sitcom “The Wonder Years” in the 1980s and ’90s.
Stirring the ocean: Calculating the role of the oceans’ swimmers
The world's oceans, we know, are constantly shaken and stirred by the winds and the tides and other physical forces of nature.