Blog
Understanding Radioactive Exposure
Like a lot of people, I’ve been watching the HBO miniseries, Chernobyl: In fact, I subscribed to HBO for this, rather than Game of Thrones, which I still have not seen. Anyway, the miniseries is remarkable and while we know it took some liberties with reality in order to facilitate
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How Data Science Happens
I have a chapter in our planned book, Handbook of Military and Defense Operations Research. In this book, co-edited with Prof. Natalie Scala, our authors explore the fundamentals of operations research in a military context. From our call for chapters: Operations research (OR) is a core discipline in military and
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Social Security Policysplainer
It is apparently time for another policysplainer. The New York Times, among others, covered the report that Social Security will start running a deficit in the next decade and not long after, be insolvent. This really should not be a surprise. The Congressional Budget Office pointed this out in 2016,
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Piedmont Hydrogeology
The Piedmont Province is a geographic region stretching from southern Pennsylvania southward through Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, northern Georgia, into eastern Alabama. The Piedmont consists of a plateau region bounded on the west by the Blue Ridge mountain range. On the east, the plateau is bounded by the Atlantic coastal
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Formal and Informal Language in English
Plain form versus formal form of the language is something Americans do not think they do. Except, they do differentiate between formal and informal language. Sociolinguists call this register, when we change the style of speech we use in different contexts. For instance, if I am writing an essay for
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Groundwater Recharge in Old Cemeteries
I have a delightfully ghoulish topic of what happens to groundwater recharge in old cemeteries. As I have talked about before, groundwater recharge is important. First, the water table needs to be refreshed. Drawdowns reduce the water supply. Second, the ability of groundwater to absorb rainwater is important for reducing
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Stokes’ Theorem and Green’s Theorem
I took a look at Green’s theorem last week and its relationship to the planimeter. Green’s theorem is a remarkable work that tells us much about the structure of two-dimensional shapes. As I said, it’s analogous to the fundamental theorem of calculus, finding the area under the curve. But Green’s
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