CTK Insights

Indeed, is it possible to miss the New Year moment? The question is not meant to account for a possible tragic circumstance and is being asked plainly and candidly. Assuming you are in good health on December 31 of one year and remain healthy on January 1 of the next year, is it possible to [...]

It's a rare pleasure to get a good book ahead of its planned publishing date. In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman by William Cook that was expected at the beginning of 2012, was delivered yesterday right to my door. My first impression is that this is the sort of a book that are read in [...]

Daniel Kahneman's - Thinking, fast and slow - an amazon.com selection as one of "Best Books of 2011" received an inspiring NY Times review by Jim Holt. Thinking, fast and slow is the first of Kahneman's books that I'll be reading on my Android tablet. Kahneman's earlier Judgement under Uncertainty; Choices, Values, and Frames; Heuristics [...]

If you have not read yet a memo by Steve's Google Platform rant, you should. A first-hand account on management practice and philosophy differences between Amazon and Google. The memo has been intended for internal google distribution but somehow found its way to a wider audience. Besides revealing some truths about the two successful online [...]

According to [P. Beckmann, p. 12], by 2000 BC, the ancient Babilonians already new that π is close to 25/8 (≈ 3.125), while the Egyptians estimated it as 4(8/9)² (≈ 3.1605). Beckmann, as many others, do not conceal his astonishment that in the Bible the apparent estimate is a simplistic 3. This is based on [...]

A few days ago my 11 years old son told me he would like to forward me an email he received from one of his friends and whether I would mind. The boy was noticeably agitated and appeared on the verge of tears. The message he sent is below. I just want to say how [...]

This is a small book written by one of my boys and illustrated by the other. The idea is along the lines discussed in my previous post. Any group of objects has an associated attribute that reflects on the size of the group. This attribute is called Number; its presence and uniqueness is what allows [...]

This is a quote from an article by Liz Dwyer from the Good Education website. Has America really fallen behind the rest of the world in academic achievement? According to a new report from the nonprofit Brookings Institution, all the doom-and-gloom commentary suggesting that we've fallen from the top spot simply isn't true. And, even [...]

Mr. Chase of the Random Walks blog came across an article by G.V. Ramanathan, a professor emeritus of mathematics, statistics and computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The author beautifully argues a few obvious (to me) facts to which the establishment intentionally or not remains blind. Unlike literature, history, politics and music, [...]

An article under that caption appeared in the Computers and Mathematics with Applications, 59 (2010) 296-297, published by ELSEVIER, a world-wide publisher. I hope the article is a hilarious joke. It is very short. So short, it can be included in a single quote of a decent length. The reason I am concerned is that [...]