New Video: A Topological Love Test (Patreon)

I've been working hard this month on this year's Pi Day video, and learning the ropes on some of the updated equipment y'all have funded for me the past couple months (Thank you!). When I remembered this classic topological love test, I felt inspired. After being in production mode for a more difficult and serious project for the last two weeks, it was a fun break to finish something quick and entertaining before getting back to the hard stuff.

My first thought was actually to make it a patron-only video just for y'all, to check in and say thanks for continuing to support despite that I am an elusive hermit, but once I got in the flow of making it I had too much fun and I thought it came out good enough to share.

I learned this topological test from Mike Caputo in around 2010, and as far as I know he originated this trick, or was an early popularizer of it, in his 1990 article in the Jan/Feb edition of The Oregon Mathematics Teacher (and if anyone can find this article maybe it will give more insight). 

I blogged about it in Feb 2011 after teaching it in a workshop when I was Mathemusician in Residence at Harvard's Pforzheimer House, but unfortunately all the links in that post are now dead (as is the blog itself) and my memory is fuzzy. So if you have any more info on the history and origins, please share it.

Just to keep as much of the history and attribution as I can, here's the dead links I have for Mike: http://teach.beaverton.k12.or.us/~mik... and for the article: https://www.octm.org/TOMT.html

I've seen a number of great videos on this in the past ten years, but none that capture quite the spirit and framing of the original love test in the way I remember it. Or maybe this is never how it originally was and I made it all up. No idea, but if you can't tell from the video, I had a blast making this and I hope you had fun watching it!

I'll hope to give another update before Pi Day, because I'm sure many of you are curious about what I'm working on and where your support is going. But something I've come to accept about myself is that I am a true mountain hermit, and I'm best off cultivating the kind of relationships where other people accept that about me too. So. Know that my heart is with you, and see you on Pi Day if not sooner.

🐌,

Vi