Archive for the 'Innovations' Category

Blogging, Tic Tac Toe and the Future of Math

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on April 8, 2010
in Blogging, Innovations, Math and Truthseeking
. 25 Comments

Blogging, as you might have heard, is changing the face of the media. It may also be changing the face of mathematical research. For the first time ever, a substantial mathematical problem has been solved via an accumulation of blog comments, all building on each other. Could this be the future of mathematical research?

Before I explain the problem, let’s talk a little about tic-tac-toe. As you probably figured out long ago, intelligent players of ordinary tic-tac-toe (on a 3 by 3 board) will invariably battle to a draw. But, as you probably also figured out, not every game ends in a draw, because not every player is intelligent.

On the other hand, if we blacken out the three squares on the main diagonal and don’t allow anyone to play there (so the game ends when the remaining six squares are filled, then every game is sure to end in a draw. There’s simply no way to get three in a row when you’re not allowed to play on the diagonal:

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Fewer Voters Are Better Voters

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on February 25, 2010
in Innovations and Politics
. 45 Comments

A Guest Post

by

Jamie Whyte

Last year, the British government decided to lift the top rate of income tax from 41 to 52 percent. Last month, Lord Myners, the UK Secretary of State for Financial Services, said that the policy would raise not nearly as much revenue as had been expected. People are apparently making efforts to avoid paying it. A host of politicians and commentators responded that it was always a foolish idea, a purely “political” policy.

But how can a bad policy be good politics? What defect in the electoral system can explain this?

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