For me the biggest difference between undergraduate math and PhD life has been something I've never seen anyone else talk about: it's the feeling like I could no longer see the ground. To explain what this means, imagine that mathematics is this wide tower, where you start with certain axioms as a foundation, and then… Continue reading Everything I need is on the ground
Signal boost for Carina Initiatives full-time position
The Carina Initiatives (https://carina.fund) is a friend of the math education community which has supported organizations like Art of Problem Solving, BEAM, Athemath, and others. They're starting a math talent search organization in the United States and are looking to hire a full-time leader (salary $200K-$250K). Passing this along in case anyone in this space… Continue reading Signal boost for Carina Initiatives full-time position
But look at me now
Last weekend in StarCraft, the world championship at IEM Katowice 2023 saw a so-good-it-must-be-scripted Cinderella story, where Oliveira won the world championship in a totally unexpected way. It was a whole roller-coaster of upset after upset from Oliveira, and up until the grand finals we were all still asking, "this can't be, is this really… Continue reading But look at me now
Japanese EGMO is published!
I'm happy to thank 日本評論社 and their team (Fuma Hirayama, Yuki Kumagae, Taiyo Kodama, Ayato Shukuta, among others) for making the Japanese translation a reality. As well as tripling the length of the errata PDF :) This marks the second translation of the EGMO textbook (a Chinese translation was published a while ago as well… Continue reading Japanese EGMO is published!
Mystery Hunt 2023
This is a retro-post for the Mystery Hunt 2023, for which I played a somewhat minor role on the organizing team (teammate). You can play at interestingthings.museum. There is an ongoing list of write-ups about the hunt being kept at puzzles.wiki, and you may also be interested in the reddit AMA from teammate. Puzzle shoutout… Continue reading Mystery Hunt 2023
A common type-error on the OTIS application
There's a common error I keep seeing on OTIS applications, so I'm going to document the error here in the hopes that I can pre-emptively dispel it. To illustrate it more clearly, here is a problem I made up for which the bogus solution also gets the wrong numerical answer: Problem: Suppose $latex {a^2+b^2+c^2=1}&fg=000000$ for… Continue reading A common type-error on the OTIS application
The silver lining
A while ago someone asked me how COVID had affected the students I worked with. I replied that, on average, the pandemic had tripled my students' productivity. And I'm gonna brag about it like the proud teacher I am.
Two updates on the EGMO textbook
Couple Thanksgiving presents for y'all: Errata List now on GitHub The list of errata is now version controlled on GitHub: https://github.com/vEnhance/egmo-book-errata.So now you can actually see a changelog of the ocean of typos as they come in.Shout-out to the crew working on the Japanese translation of the book for finding way more errors than I… Continue reading Two updates on the EGMO textbook
Why Evan does not like JavaScript as a first language
Some people have asked me why I anti-recommend JavaScript for beginners on my website FAQ. This post will try to give a few reasons why. Some notes: I’m referring to base JS. I like TypeScript a lot for example (it’s high on my tier list of programming languages for beginners). And I know about eslint,… Continue reading Why Evan does not like JavaScript as a first language
poem
don't ask why it just came in my head Quandary So you have a fair coin that you found on the ground, or at least that's what everyone says. But on each of N times that you've tossed it around, you see every flip has been heads. For which value of N should you start… Continue reading poem
Power Overwhelming 