Monthly Archive for November, 2022

Some History Lessons


A bit of history:

  • One day in the 16th century, a student at Oxford University was sitting in the woods reading a volume of Aristotle, when he was attacked by a wild boar. The student saved himself by shoving the volume down the throat of the boar and choking it to death. He brought the boar back to Oxford, where it became the centerpiece of a great feast. The anniversary has been celebrated at Oxford ever since, with an annual Boar’s Head Dinner.
  • One day in 1934, someone at the University of Rochester decided that Rochesterians should celebrate these anniversaries as well. Ever since, with a few interruptions, the University has been the site of an annual Boar’s Head Dinner, where a member of the University community is called upon to re-tell the story of the brave Oxford student, perhaps with some embellishment.
  • One day in 2005, I was the one who was called upon. The event was filmed, but the sound quality was horrendous. (So was the video quality, but that seems less important.) I’ve therefore almost never shared it.
  • One day a couple of months ago, I mentioned this to my awesome friend Rowan McVey, who volunteered to take the video, improve the sound quality, and add captions. (Note: Rowan was already entirely awesome even before she jumped on this task.)

Herewith the fruits of Rowan’s labors. The two videos linked below are identical except that the first has captions and the second doesn’t. The sound quality is still surely imperfect, but it’s a vast improvement over the original.

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Using a Brainteaser to Discover a Theorem

A Guest Post

by

Bennett Haselton

Nearly 9 years ago, Steven posted this brainteaser:

Here I have a well shuffled deck of 52 cards, half of them red and half of them black. I plan to slowly turn the cards face up, one at a time. You can raise your hand at any point — either just before I turn over the first card, or the second, or the third, et cetera. When you raise your hand, you win a prize if the next card I turn over is red.

What’s your strategy?

Read no further if you want to try and solve this brainteaser on your own first!

Continue reading ‘Using a Brainteaser to Discover a Theorem’

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From Globalization to Slowbalization

If you are in the vicinity of the University of Rochester this Wednesday (November 30), stop by Sloan Auditorium in Goergen Hall at 5PM to hear a lecture from Doug Irwin, Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College and a prominent expert in international trade. His topic is “From Globalization to Slowbalization: The Future of World Economic Integration”.

Professor Irwin’s books include Free Trade Under Fire, Peddling Protectionism, Clashing over Commerce, and Three Simple Principles of Trade Policy.

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Tom Palmer!


If you’re in the vicinity of the University of Rochester tomorrow (Sunday, November 20), do stop by Dewey Hall room 1-101 at 5PM for a talk on “Applied Political Economy and the Invasion of Ukraine” by Dr. Tom Palmer of the Atlas Network and the Cato Institute.

Dr. Palmer has written extensively on issues at the cusp of economics, politics and philosophy. As the General Director of the Atlas Network’s Global Initiative, he travels extensively to advise foreign NGOs on how to foster economic development and liberal democracy. He has recently returned from doing good work in Ukraine.

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