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You're getting this because you either previously joined my mailing list or you entered your email address when you filled out my recent survey from my video about the cube doubling problem. If you're NOT interested in receiving emails from me about 2 - 4 times per month, no worries. There's an unsubscribe link at the bottom. About that survey….You are a highly educated group! As somebody who aspires to make videos that can speak to both math-enlightened and math-skeptical viewers, I was a bit surprised by these results. I knew from my comment section that I had some very knowledgeable viewers, but I didn't realize just how many! (At least, among the self-selected subset who completed my survey…) Even so, I plan to continue to keep level of math content in my videos fairly low: minimal algebra and virtually no calculus whenever possible. But when I do eventually make a video about Newton and Leibniz, it's good to know that I won't have to shy away from calculus! What you can expect to read from meI am going to use this newsletter as a place to expand on the historical topics from my videos, filling in details that deserve further exploration or highlighting some of the ideas that motivate how I'm thinking about the history. I’ll also use this as a space to test out and refine ideas that I’m developing for future videos. Finally, I will occasionally promote paid offerings, as I experiment with ways to be of service to you in different capacities and as I seek to make “this Youtube thing” into a full time job. In all cases, you can expect my emails to be short and digestible. No long reads clogging your inbox. Up nextNext time, I’ll share another solution to the cube doubling problem which uses an approach that I have a particular fondness for. It will also give me a chance to talk a bit more about what these various solutions can teach us about the philosophy behind geometric constructions. Until then, Ben |
Ben Syversen
My newsletter featuring math history and other odds and ends
I have a reading recommendation for you. It’s not about math, but you'll probably see the implicit analogy. Utopian for Beginners, a 2012 article from The New Yorker, is one of my favorite pieces of long form journalism/narrative nonfiction. It’s been rattling around in the back of my mind ever since I first read it many years ago. The premise is this: A man named John Quijada develops an invented language called Ithkuil during his off hours from his job at the California DMV. The language is...
Here is another solution to the cube doubling problem, which didn't make it into my recent video. It uses origami, which means that six-year-old me would have been thrilled: First, fold a piece of paper into three equal sections (this can be done with a precise algorithm). Unfold, then bring the bottom left corner to the other side, such that the corner lies on the right edge and the left endpoint of the lower fold lies on the upper fold. The corner splits the right edge into two lengths. The...