By Rosemarie Emanuele. The study of Chaos Theory, a fascinating sub-field of math, was born out of the recognition that small changes can have large effects. It is often illustrated by the story of a butterfly flapping its wings thus leading to a tornado thousands of miles away. Indeed, this entire line of study was the result of a realization that rounding numbers earlier than expected can lead to results from a computer program that greatly diverge from those with no rounding. I found myself thinking of this recently as my course in Higher Geometries studied fractals (derived from equations that account for chaos.) On almost the same day, a colleague told me about her newest project. Read more...

By Laura Tropp. We moved a couple of weeks ago and had to change the children to a new school mid-year. My son said to me that it’s fine, as long as I can find him a bunch of nerds to hang out with.
I realized, though it didn’t exactly surprise me, that my son self-identifies as a nerd. This is such a change from when I was growing up. Then, nerds were someone to feel sorry for. They were mocked in popular culture: the entire plot of movie Revenge of the Nerds centered on nerds as social outcasts and underdogs. Read more...

By Francesca Giannetti and David Hunter. As Fair Use Week begins, Francesca Giannetti and David Hunter considers the use of readily and legally available digital media for MOOCs.
Their experience stems from assisting a University of Texas professor with an online jazz appreciation course. More...