one of the most beautiful facets of geometric topology is the study of contact structures -- these are nowhere-integrable plane fields (in 3-d). unlike vector fields, plane field are rarely illustrated/animated. (cause it's hard!)

Great story! I thought I knew where the story was going, but the end was better than that. youtube.com/watch?v=OI4DbE…

My first-grade report card (spring 1978) or a quote from a recent teaching evaluation? 🤣🤣🤣 That teacher knew me! (Alt text available for those of you who don't read cursive.)

In my first class of the semester (today), I brought some puzzles out of my collection so that students could puzzle them out together while waiting for class to start rather than staring at their phones.

You know you're a mathematician when... ...you see the meme ---- Stay positive |x| ---- ...and your first thought is: Well, technically, it should be ---- Don't be negative |x| ----