New York Times blog about a second chance at math

The New York Times is publishing in the opinions section a blog by Mathematician Steven Strogatz. The purpose of this series that he is writing is to take a look at math from elementary school to grad school for an artist friend of his who knows very little about mathematics. He hopes to introduce to this friend the meaning of what we say when we call a proof elegant and to convey the importance of mathematics.

In his first two entries he is starting with some very elementary ideas, numbers and arithmetic, but he intends to build up to bigger things. Already he has given a proof (using rocks) that

1+3+5+...+(2n-1) = n^2 .


Here is a TED talk by him about how synchrony arises from very simple mathematical rules and in nature.