This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
In math, there are infinitely many roots of unity, but blogs are finite. This is my last post here. I started Roots of Unity 7 1/2 years ago, when I had just finished my internship at Scientific American. I was a very green math and science writer, and I am grateful to Scientific American for giving me an opportunity to keep writing, as well as the freedom to write about what I wanted to the way I wanted to. Through writing this blog, I have learned a lot of new-to-me math, met interesting mathematicians, explored different writing styles, made and learned from my mistakes, and been fortunate to have many doors opened to me in science writing.
Although I will not be blogging for Roots of Unity anymore, I will still be writing. Seven years ago, I was starting an academic postdoc, unsure of whether or how writing would fit into my professional life. In the time since then, I quit my academic job and decided to work at a career as a full-time freelance writer. I’d like to thank my readers for making it possible by showing publishers that there is demand for all kinds of stories about math.
You will continue to find my writing here at Scientific American and at many other publications. I love helping people have positive experiences with math by writing about ideas they may not have seen in their math classes, unexpected connections between mathematics and their everyday lives, and personal stories of the people who do mathematics. If you would like to keep up with my writing, you can follow me on Twitter or subscribe to my monthly newsletter.
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I’d like to close by sharing a few of my favorite Roots of Unity articles. I was a bit shocked to realize I’ve written about 350 posts here. Narrowing it down was difficult. If you missed any of these posts when they were first written, I hope you can enjoy them now.