Yew Jin's Sometimes Blog

My Erdös number is 4.

COMPUTING TIGERS AND GOATS
Y. J. Lim, J. Nievergelt - ICGA Journal, 2004

Jürg Nievergelt coauthored with Komei Fukuda MR1708017
Komei Fukuda coauthored with David M. Avis MR1130229
David M. Avis coauthored with Paul Erdös MR0949289 (90b:05068)

I do not have much things to discuss lately, but I have to plug http://www.exampaper.com.sg, also known as Jφss Sticks - For effective prevention of Last-Minute Buddha Foot Hugging Syndrome, the significance of which is duly explained in her FAQ.

Well done to Miss Loi, who is clearly a very enterprising mathematics tutor in Singapore. For example, she sells exams papers online, and of course, tuition services (that do not come cheap). Her website is an excellent example of branding and marketing.

I really like reading her blog, which I find tickles me to no end. The funniest part of her blog is how she continuously refers to herself in a third person perspective with "Miss Loi" or "sexy maths (sic) tutor". It reminds me of the scene in Heroes Season 2 episode 2, Lizards, where Hiro Nakamura impersonates Takezo Kensei and uses his power to stop time and disarm 11 bandits. To ensure his opponents remember his hero, he repeatedly refers to himself as Takezo Kensei, to which one bandit exclaimed, approximately, "why does he keep saying his own name??"

CSI has driven so many people into forensics that colleges have started whole new programs because of it -- can we do the same for the rest of science?
- Aaron Swartz's thoughts on Science Foo Camp 2007

Agreed. Movie and TV shows can bring a career path into the limelight and the focus of popular opinion - This newspaper article noted that undergraduates studying forensic or archaeological science have increased more than 30% since the introduction of shows like the CSI series.

However, it seems to be that not all publicity is good publicity as a educational promotional tool. Ever noticed how mathematicians are always portrayed as a little ... strange?

Despite the show Numb3rs, which features a mathematician using mathematics to solve high-profile crimes, it nevertheless portrays the protanganist as socially awkward (but hey, then again, he gets the girl). This follows in the same vein as A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting. The result is a job in which people envy for its social status ("he's such a genius, I wish I was as smart as him"), but is simulatenously not desirable ("oh, I don't want to seem like such a freak").

Can we have a show with a sexy, smart (is this adjective redundant?) and desirable mathematician?