Monthly Archives: May 2008

Is More Sex Safe? A book review.

Posted on May 29, 2008 by

I was asked by the Notices of the AMS to review the book “More Sex is Safe Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom  of Econmics” by Steven E. Landsburg.  My review entitled “Economics and Common Sense”, will appeared in the June/July issue of the Notices and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book review, Economics | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

Nati’s Influence

Posted on May 26, 2008 by

      When do we say that one event causes another? Causality is a topic of great interest in statistics, physics, philosophy, law, economics, and many other places. Now, if causality is not complicated enough, we can ask what is the influence … Continue reading →

Posted in Combinatorics, Computer Science and Optimization, Open problems, Probability | Tagged , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Is Mathematics a Science?

Posted on May 25, 2008 by

Many people do not regard mathematics as a science since it does not directly probe our physical reality; some mathematicians even like to think about mathematics as being closer to art, music or literature. But is there really a big … Continue reading →

Posted in Open discussion, Philosophy, What is Mathematics | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Mathematics to the Rescue

Posted on May 23, 2008 by

  It was my first day as a postdoc at MIT, and after landing at Logan Airport I took a taxi to a relative in Beverly, north of Boston, where I was going to stay for a few days while looking for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Mathematics to the rescue, Taxi-and-other-stories | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Local Events, Turan’s Problem and Limits of Graphs and Hypergraphs

Posted on May 20, 2008 by

I will write a little about how hectic things are now here at HU, and make two (somewhat related) follow-ups on previous posts: Tell you about Turan’s problem, and about Balázs Szegedi’s lecture from Marburg dealing with limits of graphs and hypergraphs.  Local Events … Continue reading →

Posted in Combinatorics, Open problems | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Jerusalem Combinatorics ’93

Posted on May 16, 2008 by

Jerusalem Combinatorics ’93 is the title of a conference I organized that took place fifteen years ago in May 9-17, 1993 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It was a conference that was devoted to all areas of combinatorics. The other … Continue reading →

Posted in Combinatorics, Conferences, Women in science | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Rationality, Economics and Games

Posted on May 14, 2008 by

1. The “Center for Rationality” “Founded in 1991, the Hebrew University’s Center for the Study of Rationality  [at first it was simply called "Center for Rationality"] is a unique venture in which faculty, students, and guests join forces to explore the … Continue reading →

Posted in Controversies and debates, Economics, Rationality | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Drachmas

Posted on May 12, 2008 by

“The fixed price to JFK is 28 dollars” said the taxi driver; “toll and tips not included, and I want the two dollars and seventy five cents for the toll upfront.” I reached to my wallet, dug eleven quarters and … Continue reading →

Posted in Taxi-and-other-stories | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Five Open Problems Regarding Convex Polytopes

Posted on May 7, 2008 by

   The problems  1. The conjecture A centrally symmetric d-polytope has at least non empty faces. 2. The cube-simplex conjecture For every k there is f(k) so that every d-polytope with has a k-dimensional face which is either a simplex … Continue reading →

Posted in Combinatorics, Convex polytopes, Convexity, Open problems | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

A Meeting at Marburg

Posted on May 5, 2008 by

  Just returning from a cozy two days discrete-math workshop in Marburg. A very nice mixture of participants and topics. The title of my talk was “Helly theorem, hypertrees and strange enumeration” and I plan to blog about it sometime soon. A few hours before … Continue reading →

Posted in Conferences | Tagged , | 2 Comments