Viral Math....

So....  Have you figured out Cheryl's birthday yet? 

It's funny how so few people regard this puzzle as real math (as opposed to calculating a derivative or something.)  In my mind, THIS is real math;  taking a complicated situation, digging out and exposing the logical skeletal structure underlying it, studying that structure and abusing it to say something conclusive about the situation.  Problem solving, in a nutshell, is mathematics.  Or perhaps real math is learning how to synthesize and generalize the logical structure so that it can be used again in other puzzles, or situations. 

Either way....  This is real math. 

Math in the Media: The Best jobs of 2015?

I keep telling you....  Math pays!! 

In the Business section of the online newspaper The Huffington Post sits an article by Jennie Che detailing the Best Jobs of 2015, a report prepared each year by CareerCast, ranking the top 200 jobs by work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook. 

And lo and behold, mathematics permeates most of the list, with the actual job of Mathematician, sitting at number 3 (Actuarial Scientist tops the list, with Statistics sitting at number 4).  The HuffPost article

These Are The 10 Best Jobs Of 2015

is a summary of the longer article posted directly in the CareerCast website:

The Best Jobs of 2015

(always go to the source, right?)   Personally, I've held position both in academia and in industry (NASA Goddard and Lincoln Laboratory, as well as in a private tech firm.)  All were great work environments, with interesting people, work conditions, and colleagues.  I certainly cannot argue with the conclusion that math is a great field to play in.

Give the article a read!  It's good stuff.