An article on the BBC website says that a report by SCORE has found that A-level science exams do not contain enough maths questions to prepare students to progress to science degrees or related jobs.
You're reading: Posts By Peter Rowlett
Grow Your Own Food
I recently heard about Herman, the German Friendship Cake (bear with me), a cake which is divided and spread among friends, and it got me thinking about some other foodstuffs I’ve heard of which are made in such a way that the amount you have will grow exponentially. A Herman cake is a special type of sourdough cake which is made with yeast. It’s explained fully here, but the idea is that you start with a solution of yeast, which lives in a little milk, sugar and flour. This small amount of goo can live happily at room temperature on a shelf, and if you stir it every day and give it a little more flour and sugar to eat every few days, after ten days it’s ready to make into a cake.
Saharon Shelah has written more than 1000 papers
From David Roberts on Google+:
Saharon Shelah, the well-known Israeli set-theorist and logician, has passed 1000 papers!
http://shelah.logic.at/listb.html
The page was updated with a rush of almost twenty papers, taking him over the line. Notably, paper #1000 is not listed. +Richard Elwes and I were wondering what the topic of this (rather artificial) milestone paper would be.
Every now and then, when finding a citation for a paper, you come across one of these giants of prolificacy and their unreasonably long lists of publications. It makes me wonder why I don’t just give up and let them discover all the maths.
Shelah was the first recipient of the Erdős Prize and he is certainly following in the great man’s footsteps – though he’s still got a way to go before he can think about beating Erdős’s approximately (can’t blame him for losing count) 1525 publications.
Ideas Illustrated
Interesting, non-mathematically-unaware data visualisations on the blog Ideas Illustrated, including the origins of English words, the distributions of LEGO bricks, and how Wisconsin voters ended up on Null Island.
(via David Roberts on Google+)
The Aperiodcast – week of 23/4/2012
Here’s the very first edition of what we’ve cleverly decided to call The Aperiodcast. The plan is to record a short podcast every week or week-and-a-bit (this is the Aperiodical after all) talking about what’s been happening on the site, and pointing out posts that we found particularly interesting or have generated a lot of discussion.
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Talk: Alan Turing and the Enigma Machine, by James Grime
James Grime has written an all-new talk, titled “Alan Turing and the Enigma Machine”, which he’ll be delivering 5:30-6:30 on Tuesday the 12th of June at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Clarkson Road, Cambridge.
Alan Turing was one of our great 20th century mathematicians, and a pioneer of computer science. However, he may best be remembered as one of the leading code breakers of Bletchley Park during World War II. It was Turing’s brilliant insights and mathematical mind that helped to break Enigma, the apparently unbreakable code used by the German military. We present a history of both Alan Turing and the Enigma, leading up to this fascinating battle of man against machine – including a full demonstration of an original WWII Enigma Machine!
You can find more details of the event on the Millennium Mathematics Project site.
A mathematician’s survival guide, by Peter Casazza
A survival guide for young mathematicians written by Pete Casazza has been doing the rounds today. It contains an experienced mathematician’s advice for young mathematicians starting out on their careers and unsure of what to expect or what’s expected of them.