Overall, schools seem to be doing a poor job of preparing today's children for the world they will live in. And I'm not just talking about American schools. The problem seems to be almost global. The evidence for this hits me square in the eyes each day when I log...

When the second iteration of my free mathematics MOOC starts this weekend, I anticipate at least 30,000 students will sign up. Not as many as the 65,000 I got last year, when it had novelty value -- and a lot less competition! -- but still a substantial number.

By...

I suspect it's pretty rare for an expat Brit to be the object of racial denigration, but after living in the US for twenty-five years and being a citizen for over fifteen, it finally happened to me this past week. Considering the experiences of other immigrants, I am clearly lucky...

Did Lance Armstrong dope or use blood transfusions during his professional cycling career? I have no idea. Nor, it appears, does anyone else except for Lance and perhaps a few members of his team. But as a mathematician with expertise in the use of language in reasoning, I find the...

The new Fox TV series Touch, starring Kiefer Sutherland, has as one of its central characters a mathematically gifted, autistic, 11-year-old child Jake, played by David Mazouz. How accurate is the portrayal of mathematics in the show? Based on the first episode, the answer is, "Not very." (The...

"Those jobs are not coming back." That was the answer Steve Jobs reportedly gave to Barack Obama in February of last year, when the president asked him if it was possible for Apple to bring back the manufacture of some of its products to the United States.

Repetitive...

CBS's 60 Minutes segment on Khan Academy recently, opened with former hedge fund manager turned world-educator Salman Khan riding home on a bicycle, evoking (I suspect deliberately on the part of 60 Minutes) one of America's most cherished images: the lone stranger who rides into town and fixes...

How do you say "-3": "negative three" or "minus three"?

It sounds like a simple enough question. But a recent group discussion on LinkedIn generated over 60 contributions when I last checked. People seem to have very clear preferences as to what is "right." Unfortunately, those preferences differ.

In...

If there is one thing Silicon Valley knows how to do, it is fail. We do it all the time, and that is the secret of our famed success.

To the rest of the world, the Valley is a place of enormous commercial successes in the tech world: HP, Intel,...

Successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who, in creating and running their businesses, clearly understand the importance of understanding the market and testing how effective their products are, seem to leave those important instincts at the door when they comment on -- and these days increasingly get involved in -- K-12 education....