StackOverflow is a popular community that was launched by two famous programmers: Joel Spolsky (of Joel on Software fame) and Jeff Atwood (of Coding Horror fame). The aim of this site is to provide a fun environment in which to discuss programming subjects and ask coding and software engineering...

Project Euler can be an addictive site for people who are passionate about mathematics and programming. You don’t need to be an expert in either of these two disciplines to participate in it’s challenges, but any such skills you may already possess will be an asset. The author of the site,...

We first mentioned Rejecta Mathematica almost two years ago. While it did take them a while, the site has finally gone live and they recently announced their inaugural issue, which contains papers that have been rejected by peer reviewed journals on mathematical sciences. The most interesting feature of...

Wolfram Research finally launched Wolfram|Alpha, the much talked about “computational knowledge engine”. It’s unusual description is justified by the fact that we are not dealing with a search engine in the classic sense of the term, nor with the next Google. At first glance we’re...

Seven years ago Stephen Wolfram published A New Kind of Science. I remember the hype surrounding this book. Journalists jumped at the chance to praise a heavy tome that was too complex for most of them to fully understand, but that shipped with an ambitious title and the implicit guarantee that comes from a...

I’m hip-deep in the teaching of Mathematics 152, a discrete mathematics course titled “The Mathematics of Symmetry” designed by Paul Bamberg and taught at Harvard University. The course is seminar-style: the students take turns presenting the material in 5-to-15-minute assigned topics...

Chances are that in the process of learning (or re-learning) mathematical concepts you will often find yourself in need of some clarification. That’s normal and nothing to be ashamed of. It actually means that you are absorbing something new and challenging. This can become an issue, particularly if...

Tired of getting shot down when submitting mathematical articles to peer reviewed journals? Rejecta Mathematica comes to the rescue. This new site, which currently has a call for papers, is self-described as follows: Rejecta Mathematica is a new, open access, online journal that publishes only papers that...