The December Notices of the AMS are out. The two features articles are:
- The Search for Symmetric Simple Venn Diagrams considers Venn diagrams as mathematical objects in their own right, rather than just as a graphical representation of sets.
- Better Ways to Cut a Cake discusses the game theory of cake cutting.
This month’s What is a… Quasiconformal Mapping introduces a generalization of conformal mappings that makes sense in general metric spaces.
Speaking of mathematics of general interest, perhaps someone would be kind enough enough to direct our engineering group to an accessible account of ruled manifolds?
Being engineers, we’ve constructed these manifolds and put them to use before understanding them. Also our point of view is extrinsic rather than intrinsic—seemingly the opposite of most of the literature on ruled manifolds (which to be candid, we are having considerable difficulty assimilating). For us, ruled manifolds are higher-dimensional (Kahler) analogs of ruled surfaces.
Now as it happens, I’ll be spending a few days in Vegas this coming week with my Marine Sgt. son & need something that can be read poolside with enjoyment.