The Company You Keep

Forgive me if I’m a little giddy. I just looked at the Amazon page for Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks, and in a section titled “Customers Also Bought Items By,” there was a list of authors with whom I’m really excited to be somehow associated. Among those listed were:

• Marian Small – A math education consultant, author of at least 32 books, and president of One, Two… Infinity. (When I was the Curriculum Coordinator for MathCounts, I had the pleasure of working with Marian while she was a member of the Question Writing Committee. She’s brilliant and taught me a lot.)
• Mario Livio – Internationally known astrophysicist, and author of The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World’s Most Astonishing Number.
• John Allen Paulos – Math professor at Temple University and author of Innumeracy, The Mathematics of Humor, and many other great books.
• John D. Barrow – Author of Pi in the Sky, a fascinating book of numerical history that really sparked my interest in math.
• Alfred S. Posamentier – Prolific author of math books and retired dean of the School of Education at City College of New York.
• Doug Lemov – Described as “the John Madden of professional teaching,” and author of Teach Like a Champion.
• Raymond Smullyan – One of the greatest puzzle posers in the history of creation.
• Garth Sundem – A math whiz, uber-geek, and writer for Science 2.0.
• Frederick Mosteller – Founding chairman of Harvard’s statistics department. ‘Nuff said.
• Danica McKellar – Actress who played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years. She went on to earn a math degree from UCLA, and now writes books that inspire young women to pursue mathematics. (And incidentally, the most attractive person on this list.)

I apologize. I know this appears to be a lot of name-dropping. And it is. But I’m rather humbled that I am associated with such a distinguished list, as tenuous as the connection may be.