Wrong in Public is a new, hopefully very occasional, series on Roots of Unity. I don’t like being wrong in public, but sometimes I make a mistake in a post, and sometimes mistakes are interesting. In last Friday’s post on the 4-color theorem, I talked about some of the hypotheses of the theorem, including the [...]

The 4-color theorem is fairly famous in mathematics for a couple of reasons. First, it is easy to understand: any reasonable map on a plane or a sphere (in other words, any map of our world) can be colored in with four distinct colors, so that no two neighboring countries share a color. Second, computers [...]

  Kate Prengaman blogs at Xylem: An Ecology and Environment Blog and created this stunning map of ScienceOnline 2013 attendees. I have to say, it makes me happy that the number of artists has increased so much over the last couple of years. There’s more to science communication than journalism!  You need effective visuals, not [...]

I never noticed how hard it was to get around with wheels until I had a stroller to push. Stairs and curbs are everywhere, and taking the most direct route is never an option – retrofitted buildings either tuck handicapped entrances around the sides of buildings or require you to zig and zag before you [...]

New this week: a New York City gallery is featuring three-dimensional topographic maps designed by cartographer Jeffrey Ambroziak; science artist Lynn Fellman hosts an open studio in Minneapolis; the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators Greater New York Chapter’s member show closes; and ScienceOnline2012 nears registration time (Nov. 1st!) SCIART LECTURES/EVENTS **NEW** Artists’ Studio Open House: [...]