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80 votes
22 answers
15k views

How would you have answered Richard Feynman's challenge?

Reading the autobiography of Richard Feynman, I struck upon the following paragraphs, in which Feynman recall when, as a student of the Princeton physics department, he used to challenge the students ...
30 votes
15 answers
6k views

Lunch seminars for PhD students

The problem that I would like to ask about is metamathematical, but I hope the question is appropriate. I would like to know if there exist mathematical departments that run a regular seminar for all ...
77 votes
30 answers
6k views

Atlas-like websites on specific areas of mathematics

In this post, we look for the existing atlas-like websites providing well-presented classifications or database about some specific areas of mathematics. Here are some examples: GroupNames: https://...
54 votes
34 answers
14k views

Most intriguing mathematical epigraphs

Good epigraphs may attract more readers. Sometimes it is necessary. Usually epigraphs are interesting but not intriguing. To pick up an epigraph is some kind of nearly mathematical problem: it ...
185 votes
127 answers
65k views

Most memorable titles

Given the vast number of new papers / preprints that hit the internet everyday, one factor that may help papers stand out for a broader, though possibly more casual, audience is their title. This view ...
399 votes
23 answers
69k views

Thinking and Explaining

How big a gap is there between how you think about mathematics and what you say to others? Do you say what you're thinking? Please give either personal examples of how your thoughts and words differ, ...
40 votes
21 answers
16k views

Journals for undergraduates

Are there math journals that are aimed for undergraduates? I don't mean here journals where students can publish their papers, but journals that publish introductory articles that an undergraduate can ...
192 votes
79 answers
43k views

Which math paper maximizes the ratio (importance)/(length)?

My vote would be Milnor's 7-page paper "On manifolds homeomorphic to the 7-sphere", in Vol. 64 of Annals of Math. For those who have not read it, he explicitly constructs smooth 7-manifolds which are ...
39 votes
15 answers
28k views

Mathematical podcasts/audio

Just to ask if anyone is aware of any interesting math podcasts? I am particularly interested in podcasts describing mathematics in the wider world; but interesting academic podcasts would also be ...