Located on the Ariege River in the south of France, the town of Pamiers is an important part of the attractive rural setting in these parts. Some may find it surprising that the town was where a key text in the history of mathematics was written almost 600 years ago. This wonderful feature from the Mathematical Association of America's "Loci" feature describes the Pamiers Manuscript and its...

Short forms, long forms, Alaska Native, and so on. Anyway you look at it, the United States Census is a complicated and fascinating event. It happens ever yen years (as dictated by the U.S. Constitution), and it is a process that is evaluated almost constantly. Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau created the 2010 Census site in order to inform the general public about the next census. Visitors to the...

The good folks at the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) are always on the lookout for mathematical principles in the least likely of places, and this gallery of "found math" is a tribute to their perspicacity. The exhibition includes prizewinners from the Joint Mathematics Meetings Exhibition of Mathematical Art and a weekly "found math" object. Visitors can make their way through items...

The central claim of this website is that people (both women and men) have been active in science for as long as we have been human, noting that "_Science_ -- the creation of structure for our world -- _technology_ -- the use of structure in our world -- and _mathematics_ -- the common language of structure -- all have been part of our human progress, through every step of our path to the...

A number of online textbooks have been created in the past several years, and this course in linear algebra is a nice addition to the existing repertoire of such educational materials. Professor Rob Beezer of the University of Puget Sound created this introductory textbook, and he still maintains the site and provides updates periodically. The material covered in the textbook includes systems of...

The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) has developed the Loci site to bring high-quality instructional materials to math educators everywhere. One of their more recent offerings is this article by Michael Grady of Southern Utah University on how to add animations to geometric constructions. The piece talks about how users might use computers and open source ray tracing software to add the...

Dr. Scott W. Williams, a Professor of Mathematics at the State University of New York at Buffalo, maintains this webpage, which provides a Modern History of Blacks in Mathematics. In addition to a timeline highlighting key figures in mathematics, the author also considers the greatest Black Mathematicians, The First African American Women in Mathematics, The First Africans, and Other Important...

The abacus has been around for several thousand years, and it is an efficient and interesting counting machine. The standard abacus can be used to perform addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication, along with its use in extracting square roots and cubic roots. This site was created by Luis Fernandes, and it explores the wide world of the abacus through illustrations, thoughtful essays,...

This article from About.com provides a psychological perspective on Why Women Shy Away from Careers in Science and Math. The article begins, "Girls steer away from careers in math, science and engineering because they view science as a solitary rather than a social occupation." The article reports primarily on a talk that University of Michigan psychologist, Jacquelynne Eccles, gave at the Society...

Academic Earth provides videos of lectures by top scholars in "Subjects" that range from Astronomy to Entrepreneurship to Religion, from "Universities" as celebrated as MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, and Stanford. Visitors must register to view the lectures, but registration is free. There are over 1500 video lectures available, with more being added everyday. In addition to viewing the lectures...