Joshua Bowman
@thalesdisciple.bsky.social
1.2K followers 540 following 1.1K posts
Associate professor of mathematics. Hymn aficionado. Large absent-minded spirit. Resist simple narratives. Cultivate an abolitionist imagination.
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
I always appreciate these! They show up in live presentations more than in papers, however.
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
I’m going to turn this into a calculus problem.
howiehua.bsky.social
When would we ever use the harmonic mean? Here's one example:
Reposted by Joshua Bowman
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
On the flip side: bsky.app/profile/sabr...
sabrinarina.bsky.social
Oregon National Guard Adjutant General, General Gronewold says if they are federalized, that he will advise the Title 10 commander to utilize National Guard Troops to PROTECT protesters at ICE facilities. This is the right answer.
Reposted by Joshua Bowman
Reposted by Joshua Bowman
gregegansf.bsky.social
An astonishing result, beautifully described in @quantamagazine.bsky.social: the mathematics linking scattering amplitudes in particle physics to a geometric object called the amplituhedron can be better understood by also mapping the amplituhedron to the mathematics of origami.
Origami Patterns Solve a Major Physics Riddle | Quanta Magazine
The amplituhedron, a shape at the heart of particle physics, appears to be deeply connected to the mathematics of paper folding.
www.quantamagazine.org
Reposted by Joshua Bowman
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
Here’s my guess about what will happen: TikTok and younger Instagram users will get inoculated to the effects of AI slop. They won’t recognize every example, but they’ll be suitably skeptical. Older and less-online folks will be taken in more. It will be a new form of literacy, and minds will adapt.
drewharwell.com
The Sora AI disinfo nightmare is here

For more like this:
tiktok.com/@drewharwell
instagram.com/bydrewharwell
Reposted by Joshua Bowman
lollardfish.bsky.social
Go talk to the great clown pagliacci
essencesimmone.blacksky.app
Those who are 35+, what advice do you have for people just entering their 30s?
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
No, but don't worry. It's really on us as math educators to get these things cleared up.
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
And then there are those pairs of words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently.
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
There’s a great linguist on TikTok who uses features like this to determine where people are from (when they ask him to): Zay Dupree www.tiktok.com/@zaydupree
Sometimes he tracks them down to a city or part of a state, sometimes to a neighborhood (e.g. in New York City)!
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
I say “naught” usually rhymes with “caught,“ but “caught” can be pronounced differently in different places. In some places it’s more of a closed vowel, and “cot” is more open, but in others they’ve moved towards each other in sound, and can be indistinguishable. Hence the “cot-caught merger.”
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
In the U.S. it varies by region. “Nought” is unusual enough that I’m not sure how most USians would say it. Here it’s more common to use the spelling “naught” and rhyme it with “caught.” But “naught” is unusual, too, outside of idioms like “it was all for naught.”
Reposted by Joshua Bowman
scgriffith.bsky.social
the truth is always in between the extremes. that is why mathematical objects should be indexed starting with 0.5
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
Tired: the smallest natural number is one.

Wired: the smallest infinite cardinal is aleph-one.
rhymeswithspecimen.bsky.social
this is why indexing should always start at 1
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
This is like the platypus of time zone maps.
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
I can’t even process what this would be like. Why would anyone come up with this?
nomadpenguin.bsky.social
Fellow Aussies. Enjoy your last night before this madness descends.
A map of Australia, showing the five different time zones for daylight saving: WA +8, NT +9.5, QLD +10, SA +10.5, NSW/VIC/TAS +11.
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
After a couple of votes for “x-nought” in the comments, I did some research and determined that either naught or nought is acceptable.

Whether their pronunciation is the same or different, I’m not sure.
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
TIL at least some of my students believed x_0 was read as x-not, rather than x-naught.

Is this more common in places with the cot-caught merger, or does that not make a difference? Is it just because “naught” is an archaic word?
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
That's an amazing story. May I share it with my students?
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
I think they just didn’t know the word.
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
The real question is, how did zero come to be both “naught” and “aught”?
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
TIL at least some of my students believed x_0 was read as x-not, rather than x-naught.

Is this more common in places with the cot-caught merger, or does that not make a difference? Is it just because “naught” is an archaic word?
thalesdisciple.bsky.social
Oh yes, the students were thrilled when I pointed out that “aught” and “ought” are also spelled differently.
Reposted by Joshua Bowman
clontz.org
It's not knot, but also not naught. It's a little bit nautical, but also somewhat naughty.
Reposted by Joshua Bowman