January 27, 2016
For about a year in graduate school, I was a serious Go player. I read a few books and even played in a tournament. It's a beautiful game, no question about it, but after wasting so much time just to become a mediocre chess player, I eventually decided not to repeat the process with Go.
One thing…
January 26, 2016
Snow? Bah! Problem Of the Week doesn't care about snow.
That's right, it's time for another semester of teasers, enigmas, and conundrums. Our theme this term is:
NUMBER THEORY, WITH MATH JOKES
As always, we start with a fairly easy problem. Overall, though, I think the problems this term…
January 24, 2016
Well, the final snow tally in my neck of the woods was a little over two feet. Impressive! On the other hand, there doesn't seem to have been much damage. There were no strong winds, we never lost power, and all of my trees seem to be intact. And it means I get another snow day tomorrow!…
January 22, 2016
Here in my little neck of the woods we didn't get the apocalyptic, world-ending snow you've heard about on the news. But it was more than enough to close school for the day, and that's good enough for me!
Meanwhile, here's Emily the cat staring at the snow while I was working on the computer:
January 21, 2016
The United Methodist Church has denied an application from the Discovery Institute to set up a table at their upcoming general conference. As you can imagine, the ID folks and their fellow travelers are having a collective freak out about this. Click here for a representative post about the sheer…
January 20, 2016
In a post from 2012, I wrote the following as part of a discussion about reconciling science and religion:
Too often the defender of reconciliation acts as though his job is done as soon as he has tossed off a logically possible scenario that includes both God and evolution.
This was specifically…
January 17, 2016
Folks, I entertained tonight. Had actual people over at my house and served them dinner.
And quite a dinner it was, if I do say so myself! I prepared filet mignon, with a homemade pan sauce made from balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, and chopped onion. For side dishes I roasted some red potatoes…
January 14, 2016
Have you been following the goings-on at Wheaton College?
Last week, Wheaton Provost Stanton Jones took the first step toward firing Larycia Hawkins, a political science professor at the college for more than eight years, who posted on Facebook last month her intentions to show support for Muslims…
January 12, 2016
Philosophers Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle believe that it has. They make their case in this essay, posted at The New York Times.
The history of Western philosophy can be presented in a number of ways. It can be told in terms of periods — ancient, medieval and modern. We can divide it into…
January 11, 2016
In a post from four years ago, I wrote this:
[A]s a society we do everything in our power to make teaching as unappealing a profession as possible. In most districts the pay and benefits are laughable compared to other professions. Even worse, there is a deep lack of respect for the work that…
January 10, 2016
I picked a charming helpmate for you this week, composed by Edgar Holladay in 1978. He was especially well known for lightweight problems where the pieces formed a recognizable shape on the board. This one looks roughly like an arrow. The stipulation calls for helpmate in eight:
Remember that…
January 9, 2016
Having neglected my Sunday Chess Problem duties recently, I'll give you a bonus chess post this week. I won't be making a habit of this, however, since I don't usually play games like this.
Here's a blitz game I recently played on the Internet Chess Club. I was white. My opponent was black and…
January 7, 2016
As it happens, I've been thinking about mathematical anti-evolutionism a lot lately.
Sometime over the summer, though I can't find the exact post, I mentioned that I had been working on an article about mathematical arguments against evolution. I finished it in the fall, and it has recently been…
January 6, 2016
There's a famous short story by Woody Allen called “The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers” that I like to reread from time to time. (It's very short, so follow the link if you've never read it before.) The story is told through the correspondence of Gossage and Vardebedian, as they argue about a game of…
January 5, 2016
One of my New Year's resolutions is to pay more attention to my blog, so let's kick off the year by considering what showed up in my mailbox today.
Though I have recently been less active on the creationism beat than I have been in the past, I am still on a handful of creationist mailing lists. As…
December 20, 2015
I'm a bit pressed for time today, so I've chosen a simple, but very charming, problem for you this week. This was composed by Fritz Giegold and Herbert Engel in 1973. White is to play and mate in five:
Things certainly look bad for black, since he's boxed in and hard up for moves. But…
December 12, 2015
This week I have a classic direct-mate problem for you. It comes from the great Soviet composer Lev Loshinsky and was published in 1947. Loshinsky's last appearance in Sunday Chess Problem was almost two years ago, so it is well past time to see another of his works. White is to move and mate in…
December 12, 2015
This might be too inside baseball for a lot of people, but those who have been reading political bogs for a long time might find it interesting. BuzzFeed has a lengthy profile of Mickey Kaus.
When I first started taking politics seriously in the mid-nineties, Kaus was a writer for The New Republic…
December 10, 2015
You can accuse Sam Harris of a lot of things, but being a bad writer is not one of them. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I basically agree but think his manner of expression makes life too easy for his critics, and sometimes I disagree. But I always feel like I understand perfectly what he…
December 8, 2015
Prior to Donald Trump's latest expectoration, which has proven to be a bit much even for hard-core conservatives, the Republicans were worked up over a pressing question of semantics. In their telling, if you describe the threat we face as coming from “Jihadism,” then you are a politically correct…
December 7, 2015
It seems like everyone's losing their minds about Islam these days.
On the one hand there are many on the left who will accuse you of bigotry or Islamophobia if you criticize anything at all about Islam. Apparently we're not allowed to notice that there are fifty-some Muslim countries in the world…
December 5, 2015
Having taken the last two weeks off, Sunday Chess Problem now makes a triumphant return! This week I have chosen a wonderful direct mate problem by Valentin Rudenko, composed in 1983. It deservedly won First Prize in its tourney. White is to play and mate in four:
This problem showcases a…
December 5, 2015
Let us continue with our discussion of Winston Ewert's defense of the concept of “specified complexity.”
In Part One we saw that Ewert's defense was actually rather tepid. He mostly gave away the game by writing:
It is true that specified complexity does not in any way help establish that the…
December 4, 2015
Here's a brainteaser for you. I'm interested to know what you all think of it:
A group of smokers had twenty-five cigarette butts in an ashtray. Each butt still contained a small amount of usable tobacco. The smokers knew that any five butts contained enough tobacco to make one new cigarette.…
December 3, 2015
Over at the Discovery Institute's blog, Winston Ewert has a post up explaining, one more time, what specified complexity is. Since I am given a mention near the end, perhaps it's worth a look.
For those not steeped in ID rhetoric, “specified complexity” is a term coined by William Dembski. It is…
November 30, 2015
The title says it all. Go have a look and let me know what you think. Problem of the eek will make a triumphant return in January. See you then!
November 25, 2015
I'm currently working out of my New Jersey office, which is to say that I'm visiting my family for Thanksgiving. But if you're looking for a little light reading, try this short post by Andy Borowitz at The New Yorker:
Many Americans are tired of explaining things to idiots, particularly when the…
November 20, 2015
Colleges and universities have been in the news lately. This has been for a variety of reasons, some good, some silly, some bad. Hanging it over it all, however, is something that's bothering me. We'll come to that shortly.
Let's start with the good. Threats and “fighting words” are not…
November 16, 2015
Sunday Chess Problem is taking the week off. But in other sporting news, Holly Holm defeated Ronda Rousey in their big fight on Saturday.
I've been a casual MAA fan for a while, and I like Ronda Rousey, so I actually bought the Pay-Per-View to watch the fight. Now, the thing about fighters is…
November 14, 2015
I've started reading Michael Ruse's book Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by Oxford University Press earlier this year. Ruse is a philosopher at Florida State University, but he has turned himself into something of a crackpot over the last ten years. He's edited two books with ID…
