Dave Kung

@dtkung

Mathematician, policy wonk, joyful conspirator, violinist, runner. Exec. Dir. at TPSE Math & Independent math ed consultant after stints for UT Dana Center, MAA, SMCM, Fudan U., Lingnan U. & the Great Courses. Part of the exhausted resistance.

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Dave Kung@dtkung· 18d

The right answer is 3:42.66. (I posted about this when it happened so it's not really a spoiler.) Better question: Without looking anything up, what mile event has a world record near each of the other four times? I'll go first: 1:42.66 - speed skating on a 400m track?

Question from the NYTimes news quiz about Josh Kerr's new mile world record. Options (all with 42.66 seconds added) are 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes and 5 minutes.

Dave Kung@dtkung· 18d

OK, apparently not everyone is a track nut. Just 62% of NYT readers got it right.

The correct answer is 3:42.66 – which was answered correctly by just 62% of readers. (For reference, most questions are answered correctly by over 90% of readers.)

Dave Kung@dtkung· 20d

If you haven't seen #CountedOut (documentary about mathematics education), here's your chance - from the comfort of your own home! (Aug 8, 4pm) watch.eventive.org/countedout/p...

Dave Kung@dtkung· 26d

That's Josh Kerr just after setting a new mile world record: 3:42.66, taking down Hicham El Guerrouj' legendary record from 1999 (3:43.13). Amazing.

Josh Kerr throwing his first in the air after the finish.

Dave Kung@dtkung· 29d

Here's the comment I submitted regarding the proposed changes to federal grant processes.

Comment:
If I were a strategist for the Chinese Government, I would be ecstatic at this rule. It would further degrade the US's standing in the world's scientific community, drive hundreds of the top minds out of the US (many to China) and keep a generation of the brightest Chinese students at home instead of heading to the US (as generations before - including my father - have done.) If implemented, these changes will be seen as among the worst self-inflicted policy debacles in US history. The destruction of American scientific dominance will be swift. Its reconstruction will take decades.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jul 13

Here's a nice graphic showing Straits of Hormuz traffic. (Got tired of intermittent reporting and went searching for raw data.) Daily updates here: www.shipfinder.com/special/hormuz

Graph of in and outbound ship traffic over the last month, dropping significantly over the last few days.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jul 9

Weird. Flying DCA to DFW to work with the math folks at UT Arlington tomorrow. We boarded at DCA. Then we deplaned. Then we watched as a bunch of cops conferred with a bunch of suits. Mostly they just looked around. Officially it's a "scanning issue". Right. Boarding again in a few...

Cops standing around talking at an American gate at DCA.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jul 8

Both proctored and un-proctored students took a (sometimes-proctored) assessment. As most teachers would have guessed, students who had access to LLMs during learning (some of whom presumably took advantage of that) had reduced performance on AI-susceptible questions when proctored. 5/n

Non-proctored students show few differences between AI-resistant and AI-susceptible questions. There is a dip in results for proctored students in the AI-susceptible questions (word problems) after 2023 when LLMs were available.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jul 8

... students who were proctored (i.e. couldn't use LLMs) didn't have any drop in learning time. The difference was entirely due to students who were un-proctored. What were the impacts? 4/n

Proctored students showed no drop from before LLMs were available to after. Un-proctored students showed a large drop in learning times from before to after.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jul 8

Students with access to LLMs took less time. That effect was bigger among older students. Was that drop in time uniform across the populations? Nope... 3/n

Graphs of the difference in learning time over time for Grade 5, Middle School, High School, and College students. Times got shorter (differences negative) after access to Chat, especially among HS and College students.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jul 8

The study makes use of the fact that similar questions were asked before and after access to LLMs, that some questions are more easily fed into Chat (a) and some less easily (c), and that only some students were proctored. Here's two questions: 2/n

Problem (a): "Two consecutive integers have a sum of 173. Find the integers." This is easily cut and pasted into a chatbot.

Problem (b): Below is the graph of y=4^x. Translate it to become the graph of y=4^(x-1) -2. Because this problem is graphical, it's harder to get a chat bot to help answer it.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jul 4

On our way to Philly to watch France v. Paraguay. 100 degrees and getting hotter 🥵 @mathyadriana.bsky.social #worldcup

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jul 2

Hmm. I've seen a lot of it lately at the World Cup.

The NYT bee doesn't take the word "megging" short for nutmegging among soccer players.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jun 28

FIFA: Messi now stands alone among the all time World Cup goal scorers. Marta: ...um, could we have a word please?

FIFA list of all time leading scorers at the World Cup only has men on the list.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jun 19

Hey @duolingoesp.bsky.social - you gotta work on your timing. @usmnt.ussoccer.com plays Australia at 3 this afternoon.

Screenshot of Duolingo: "You've earned the Australia suit!"

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jun 13

Gotta feel a little sorry for New Jersey. The games are literally in New Jersey ... but somehow just stating that isn't good enough. (See also: Giants & Jets)

2026 World Cup sign: "We are New York New Jersey."

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jun 3

Dave Kung@dtkung· Jun 3

Hoping these monuments - so beautiful at night - live to see a return to the functioning democracy fought for by so many.

Dave Kung@dtkung· May 31

"We'll have four mini spritzes. " "Great - a group of three and one more." "No - we'll take two groups of two." #BetterLivingThroughMath #DrinkingWithMathematicians

Mini spritzes are one for 9, two for 16, three for 24.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Apr 23

Admit it, fellow math nerds, you tried it too...

Dave Kung@dtkung· Apr 13

Race Updates: 1. Pogacar lost in a one-up sprint. 2. Orban lost (yay!) 3. I made it through 10 miles - a lot slower than I used to, but wearing a meaningful message on my back. Beautiful day for a run!

Dave Kung@dtkung· Apr 8

Hey #FIFA - how's that Peace Prize looking now that the recipient has bombed a country for a month and threaded to wipe an civilization off the map?

Dave Kung@dtkung· Mar 21

Funding your opponents? Sounds more like "losing" than "winning."

New York Times headline: US lifts sanctions on Iranian oil.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Mar 19

It's been a while since I biked down to catch the sunset - this time from Historically St Mary's City.

Beautiful sunset over the St Mary's River.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Mar 2

"I feel erased!" - every cellist who has suffered through Pachelbel's Canon.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Feb 25

As a child of the 80's I object!

The NYTimes Spelling Bee doesn't take "dorkwad".

Dave Kung@dtkung· Feb 15

I'm generally impressed with NYTimes readers - great comments, impressive stats in games, etc. But this question really just asks you to divide 1980 by 360 – and only 36% got it right. What do you think. Most people didn't know how to interpret 1980? Couldn't/didn't do the division right?

NYTimes News Quiz asking how many rotations in a backside 1980 weddle jump. 36% of readers answered it correctly.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Feb 12

It's true that the "grrrrrr" sound I made isn't a very good example of what I was going for... #BeeMoan

The NYTimes spelling bee doesn't take the word formant.

Dave Kung@dtkung· Feb 10

Skating commentary: "He rotates at over 300 rpms. That's faster then they sprint at the Tour de France." What does that even mean? Can we compare one person's height to another's weight? #Olympics #CommentaryFail

Yuma Kagiyama, of Japan, performs during a figure skating training session at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026.
Francisco Seco - AP

Dave Kung@dtkung· Feb 4

It's clear that one of the richest men in the world is valuing disinformation over information. Not good for democracy.