March Newsletter

So finally here is the March edition of the Moderators' Newsletter. Satvik was a bit busy with his exams this so I had taken up the responsibility for this edition. Hope you all like it.

New features to be excited about

Change is permanent. It continues to etch its stories on everyone, everything and everywhere. And we have a bunch of its stories right here on Brilliant in the form of several features that would make you wish to stay on the website a “little” longer every day.

Brilliant Waterloo Engineering Scholarship - the decisions will be out real soon!:

Get ready, hold your breath, cross your fingers for the results for the scholarship program at University of Waterloo will be out sooner or later. The highly anticipated results will reveal the names of the two members who have been selected by Brilliant to attend one of the world's finest engineering programs

Calvin isn't the only guy who works for Brilliant – The Brilliant Professional Programming Series:

We also had a note on our feeds which was an eye opener to the portion of the community that believed the myth that a “Calvin Lin” was the only thing required to run the website – The Brilliant Professional Programming Series. Although it has not yet garnered as much attention as Calvin Lin’s Messageboard (which probably explains the myth), it provided a good insight into what the company Brilliant looks like. We expect about a monthly post from the programmers, with the first installment already out there. So do subscribe to the thread.

New Quantitative finance section for those interested about financial literacy!:

Quantitative Finance is a field of applied math which seeks to predict how financial markets behave. It crosses many disciplines like Probability, Combinatorics, Economics and Computer Science. This is a new and exciting area for the Brilliant community to explore, and would open up further opportunities down the road.

SAT section with a brand new look! Yay!:

The new SAT section on Brilliant helps you master each SAT topic, providing you with hundreds of examples, multiple solution approaches, and explanations for incorrect choices. Links to individual skills, Tips and Facts and Formulas further help you prepare for the test. Check it out!

The moderators are here at your service!:

Have a question about Brilliant? Need help? Or just want to hang out with us? Come find us in the moderator’s messageboard.

Challenging Problems

Challenges are the true mirrors; they show what you are capable of. And Brilliant has a plethora of these mirrors for everyone from the novices to the experts and maybe even Calvin (though different types of them :P). The community has been flooded with a number of good problems this month as usual. Here are some of them just in case you didn’t happen to find them on your feeds

Inspired by Anshuman Das , For all Harry Potter Fans , Few more days til Valentine's day , Valentine's Picks and How can 1=0 are some challenging problems above the intermediate level.
Is this what you call Logic , Question 2 , Think don't substitute and Factorials! are some the problems which aren't difficult as such but provoke thinking

New and Active members

The Brilliant community is now spreading like never before. Students and mentors from all over the world are adding to the community every day, contributing to it and also learning from it. Several members have been really active for past couple of fortnights and have been significantly contributing to the community lately. They deserve a word of mention and recognition for their benefaction to the community. Sravanth Chebrolu , Bryan Lee Shi Yang , Patrick Bourg , Kartik Kulkarni, Srutatshi Chakrabarti and Roman Fargo are definitely going to hit the WhoToFollow list in near future.

Interesting Happenings

Our fellow mod, Daniel just reached the 5000 follower milestone. Hearty congratulations to him on his achievement.
This newsletter is flanked by important examinations in countries with a significant number of members in the community, India and USA. There was AMC in US a couple of weeks ago and in India JEE-Mains is at the doorstep. One can find a number of discussions about it which were posted within about a couple of weeks.
Brilliant's Logo: Ever wondered what inspired the Brilliant's logo? Is it fullerene or a globe or some sort of connections? Well here is the answer: It was inspired by Dymxaion Map. Here is the product designer's take on it.

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Who To Follow

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This section recognizes the members who have been really helping out the community sincerely over a fairly long period and have helped in raising the bar continuously making the experience better for the entire community. What follows is the most awaited list of the newsletter, in no specific order.

Be sure to hit the follow button when you see their profiles.

This month’s Special

Missed Brilliant due to exams? Weren't following any of the above people? Coming back to see what has changed? Well, here is a collection of the most popular discussions on Brilliant in the past month so that you feel as much a part of the community as others and to get you going and fueling your streaks yet again.

-JEE 2015 coming :: Hows Your Preparations

-Future aspects of our life

-Proof that $\zeta(2) = \frac{ { \pi} ^2} { 6}$

-Probability Practice

-The curious case of nothing multiplied No times

Quote of the month

Brilliant is not just Math, Physics or CS. Besides the new quantitative finance section being an additional facet, we also relished a flavour of philosophy in the past month. Sandeep Bhardwaj’s series of notes reflects his philosophy of life and is worth a read. And not to forget our “quotist”, Jeremy Bansil has yet another thought provoking note for you - "Never tell a story if you do not even know the moral lesson. ".

Acknowledgements:

Satvik for handing over the "responsibility" to me (and his exams :P).

Mursalin Habib and Calvin Lin for their valuable comments and contributions.

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`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$