mathematics

Jordan Ellenberg

Jordan Ellenberg is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jordan Ellenberg rather than just read about it. In short: Jordan Stuart Ellenberg (born October 30, 1971) is an American mathematician who is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research involves arithmetic geometry.

Key takeaways

Jordan Ellenberg belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jordan Ellenberg to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jordan Ellenberg from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jordan Stuart Ellenberg (born October 30, 1971) is an American mathematician who is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research involves arithmetic geometry. He is also an author of both fiction and non-fiction writing.

Early life Ellenberg was born in Potomac, Maryland. He was a child prodigy who taught himself to read at the age of two by watching Sesame Street. His mother discovered his ability one day while she was driving on the Capital Beltway when her toddler informed her, "The sign says 'Bethesda is to the right.'" In second grade, he helped his teenage babysitter with her math homework. By fourth grade, he was participating in high school competitions (such as the American Regions Mathematics League) as a member of the Montgomery County math team. And by eighth grade, he had started college-level work. He was part of the Johns Hopkins University Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth longitudinal cohort. He scored a perfect 800 on the math portion and a 680 on the verbal portion of the SAT-I exam at the age of 12. When he was in eighth grade, he took honors calculus classes at the University of Maryland; when he was a junior at Winston Churchill High School, he earned a perfect score of 1600 on the SAT; and as a high school senior, he placed second in the national Westinghouse Science Talent Search. He participated in the International Mathematical Olympiads three times, winning gold medals in 1987 and 1989 (with perfect scores) and a silver medal in 1988. He was also a two-time Putnam fellow (1990 and 1992) while at Harvard.

Career In 2004, he began teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics, a position he has held since 2015. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society and was a plenary speaker at the 2013 Joint Mathematics Meetings where he spoke on the subject of number theory and algebraic topology, the study of abstract high-dimensional shapes and the relations between them. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2015. He was elected as one of the six A.D. White Professors-at-Large at Cornell in 2019. His research focuses on "the fields of number theory and algebraic geometry." In addition to his research articles, he has authored a novel, The Grasshopper King, which was a finalist for the 2004 Young Lions Fiction Award; the "Do the Math" column in Slate; two non-fiction books, How Not to Be Wrong and Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else (2022); and articles on mathematical topics in many newspapers and general magazines. Ellenberg was a mathematics consultant for the 2017 film Gifted, which features a math prodigy as its protagonist; he also made a cameo appearance in the film as a professor lecturing on the partition function and Ramanujan's congruences.

Personal life Ellenberg lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife and children. He is the son of statisticians Susan S. Ellenberg and Jonas H. Ellenberg. He maintains a blog called Quomodocumque which means "after whatever fashion" in Latin.

Works

Nonfiction How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking (Penguin, 2014) ISBN 978-1594205224 Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else. Description and Kirkus book review. (Penguin, 2021) ISBN 9781984879059

Novels The Grasshopper King (Coffee House Press, 2003) ISBN 978-1566891394

Essays Ellenberg, Jordan (May 30, 2014). "The Wrong Way to Treat Child Geniuses". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 1, 2014. Ellenberg, Jordan (July 24, 2014). "Don't Teach Math, Coach It". New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2018. Ellenberg, Jordan (22 May 2013). "The Beauty of Bounded Gaps". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 28 January 2018. Ellenberg, Jordan (November 2003). "The Last Great Problem". The Believer. Retrieved 28 January 2018. Ellenberg, Jordan (May 23, 2021). "What Honest Abe Learned from Geometry". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved May 26, 2021. Ellenberg's essay is adapted from his 2021 book, Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else, Penguin.

Filmography

References

External links Personal website: writings & blog Interview: Jordan Ellenberg discusses mathematical misunderstandings and his book "How Not to Be Wrong" on the 7th Avenue Project radio show Jordan Ellenberg at the Mathematics Genealogy Project Jordan Ellenberg's results at International Mathematical Olympiad

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jordan Ellenberg

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jordan Ellenberg claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jordan Ellenberg before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jordan Ellenberg ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jordan Ellenberg

In research: Jordan Ellenberg appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jordan Ellenberg in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jordan Ellenberg is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1971 births, 20th-century American mathematicians, 21st-century American male writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jordan Ellenberg outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jordan Ellenberg in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jordan Ellenberg means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jordan Ellenberg out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jordan Ellenberg in simple terms?

Jordan Stuart Ellenberg (born October 30, 1971) is an American mathematician who is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research involves arithmetic geometry.

Why does Jordan Ellenberg matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jordan Ellenberg?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jordan Ellenberg.