The following are high-quality newspapers and magazines that you may want to read regularly. They are good sources for current discoveries and applications of both discrete and continuous mathematics.
New York Times (Newspaper)
NY Times Co., daily; cost varies.
See especially the Science Times (Tuesdays): Gina Kolata, who recently won an award from the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics, often writes articles in this section on mathematical topics, such as recent breakthroughs on factoring large primes, the Traveling Salesperson Problem, and ``DNA computing.'' The economics and patents columns in the business section, as well as financial and stock market data, are good sources for both applications and problems.
What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences
(Booklet)
Barry Cipra; AMS, annual (since 1993);
$7 (ea.).
A well-written review of ``hot'' and accessible mathematics topics on which
progress was made during the year.
The author writes frequently on mathematics topics
for the newsletter of the Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics (SIAM).
Mathematical Intelligencer
(Magazine)
Springer-Verlag, 4/yr; $33/yr.
This is an unusual journal with lively expository articles for a general mathematical audience. It has book reviews and articles about mathematicians and the history of mathematics. The text is sprinkled with intriguing and humorous quotations and pictures. A special feature is the Mathematical Tourist column, in which readers report on mathematically interesting sites (such as buildings or sculpture that incorporate interesting geometry or topology, or home towns of famous mathematicians), illustrated with photographs.
Scientific American (Magazine)
Scientific American, 12/yr; $36/yr.
This classic journal has a variety of articles on current science topics aimed at a broad, educated audience. There are often good articles involving mathematical modeling, some suitable for student reading. The column Mathematical Recreations, edited by Ian Stewart, which has undergone several incarnations since Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column, is still a great source of fun problems. Many of Gardner's columns can be found in books, such as [14]. His successor, Douglas Hofstadter also published his columns [16], which can be used for classroom activities [34].
American Scientist (Magazine)
American Scientist, 6/yr; $28/yr.
This is the magazine of Sigma Xi, the scientific honor society. It has well-written articles on a range of scientific topics, as in Scientific American. It contains an extensive section of book reviews, and has good science cartoons.