Tom Lidbetter: being “hunted”: how randomness can help

Tom Lidbetter is an LSE Fellow in the Department of Mathematics. His research is concerned with using game theory to analyse models of hide-and-seek such as those described above. In particular, he developed a new theory of searching for multiple targets by considering the best randomised strategies both for searching and hiding. For more information about Tom’s research, see his website

Mathematics Education (and Other) Perspectives A Review of Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

The biggest problem I have with reviewing The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Taleb, 2010) is deciding from what perspective to write. There are a number of lenses through which I considered this work in relation to mathematics education: the Associate Professor, always searching for new resources for mathematics education classes; the teacher, always looking for new messages and ways of speaking to students (including pre-service teachers) about what mathematics is, what purposes it serves, and what limitations it inherently carries; the learner-teacher, always looking for a greater depth of understanding of the mathematics we are charged with teaching; the curriculum and pedagogy researcher and theorist, always looking for new ideas that might be applied to or impact education within and beyond the mathematics classroom; and the learning ally, always critiquing what is included or not for diversity of voice and ways of knowing. In the review that follows, I will speak to what I “saw” in looking through these various lenses

Proof, Explanation, and Justification in Mathematical Practice

In this paper, I propose that applying the methods of data science to “the problem of whether mathematical explanations occur within mathematics itself” (Mancosu 2018) might be a fruitful way to shed new light on the problem. By carefully selecting indicator words for explanation and justification, and then systematically searching for these indicators in databases of scholarly works in mathematics, we can get an idea of how mathematicians use these terms in mathematical practice and with what frequency. The results of this empirical study suggest that mathematical explanations do occur in research articles published in mathematics journals, as indicated by the occurrence of explanation indicators. When compared with the use of justification indicators, however, the data suggest that justifications occur much more frequently than explanations in scholarly mathematical practice. The results also suggest that justificatory proofs occur much more frequently than explanatory proofs, thus suggesting that proof may be playing a larger justificatory role than an explanatory role in scholarly mathematical practice

Mathematic & mathematics education: searching for common ground, edited by M. Fried and T. Dreyfus, New York, Springer, 2014, 402 pp., £90, ISBN 978-94-007-7472-8

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Research in Mathematics Education on 22nd Aug 2014, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14794802.2014.93735

Computation of generalized inverses using Php/MySql environment

The main aim of this paper is to develop a client/server-based model for computing the weighted Moore-Penrose inverse using the partitioning method as well as for storage of generated results. The web application is developed in the PHP/MySQL environment. The source code is open and free for testing by using a web browser. Influence of different matrix representations and storage systems on the computational time is investigated. The CPU time for searching the previously stored pseudo-inverses is compared with the CPU time spent for new computation of the same inverses.Comment: International Journal of Computer Mathematics, Volume 88, Issue 11, 201

Searching for the exit in a maze? Or setting sail for new Horizons? Metaphors by twelfth grade students for learning mathematics

This study examines and classifies the metaphors that twelfth grade students formulated to describe the concept of "learning mathematics". The sample of the study consists of 669 twelfth grade students (317 female, 352 male) of two Anatolian and two vocational high schools located in the city center of Denizli. The following questions guided this study: What metaphors do students use to describe the concept of "learning mathematics"? What conceptual categories can be derived from these metaphorical images? How these conceptual categories differ by high school type? How these conceptual categories differ by students' gender? The data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. According to the results, 76 valid metaphors and eight main conceptual categories were identified. These main conceptual categories are: discovering an unknown, learning a new skill, solving a puzzle, learning the rules and playing a game, using a tool, difficulties of learning mathematics, pleasure of learning mathematics, having a hardship. According to Pearson chi square calculations Anatolian high school students and girls produced more metaphors about enjoying mathematics than vocational high school students and boys. Also, vocational high school students and boys produced more metaphors about difficulties of learning mathematics and having a hardship than Anatolian high school students and girls. ©2013 Educational Consultancy and Research Center

Semantic Categorization Of Online Video

As internet users are increasing day by day, the users of video-sharing site are also increasing. Video-sharing is becoming more and more popular in e-learing, but the current famous websites like youtube are not structured when it come to serving the purpose of providing educational videos for preschool and high school students. There is a need to fill building more educationally focused video site, where the content is more structured, easy to use, support both direct search and browsing, and follow a particular curriculum for preschool and high school students. This report discuss the issues like categorization and search interface of these sites and propose alternatives to existing ones out there. In this project, I have built an educational website for preschool, high school, and college level students concentrating on improved categorization and search interface of the site. This report provides detail description of my system and the results of comparison between my site and youtube. supraj