In it what is in it

How to flip a mattress

Finally, a new use for mathematics in the bedroom! (Modesty forbids talking of the older uses :)). Steven Strogratz in Group Think in the on-line Opinionator for the New York Times explains how Group Theory can be applied to the task of flipping a mattress. Why would you do it? For even wear, of course, and hence better sleep. You can flip horizontally or vertically, or rotate about an axis. These can be further sequenced into a plethora of choices. That is the where the splendid illustrations come in. 

Logicomix -- An Epic Search For Truth

I have been reading Logicomix for a few nights now.  It is an ambitious undertaking: a graphic-factual exploration of Bertrand Russel's quest for a logical foundation for mathematics. Whitehead, Frege, Cantor, Wittgenstein all make their appearances -- and last night Kurt Godel showed up, innocently enough. But we can hear the pillars creaking...

The graphics by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna are stunning.  The story, by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimirtiou, is less stellar.  Doxiadis is the author of the rightly popular, "Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture".  Papadimitrou is a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of, "Turing".  These are excellent credentials for the task at hand.  But the introspective forays, where the team occasionally shows up in the story, while clever at the start, seems to change from a bridge to a crutch in connecting different parts of the story.  There seems to be a desire to dramatize beyond what is needed.  The madness-logic theme is stressed till it becomes overdone.  But the story, told as a lecture by Bertrand Russel, remains true and leaves one empathetic to the concerns of driven minds seeking the truth.

Oh well; there is more to come and I may yet become enamored of the book.  But even without that glow, I am quite ready to recommend it.  The book has its own web site where you will find more.