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Braille Rubik’s Cube by Konstantin Datz
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Hints about Relatively Prime
Although we all know Samuel Hansen will do a fantastic job telling stories behind mathematics, provided you donate some money to help him do so, we don’t entirely know what those stories will be. Here are a list of tweets I’ve seen on Samuel’s Twitter stream about this, giving hints.
help me tell people how crickets led to a better understanding of Kevin Bacon through math
Why does it seems that 20% of your friends get you 80% of your news?
Can slime molds make Steiner trees?
Networks are the basis of our social lives & what I’m trying to leverage to support my Kickstarter Relatively Prime
True story: It take 362 pages to prove 1+1=2. Find out more by Supporting the Relatively Prime Kickstarter.
Can a war over a math discovery make a country to fall years behind in science?
Ever wonder what how a river and logic could both lead to the same mathematical discovery?
Wondering if you can musically represent a function? Support Relatively Prime and I will have the chance to answer
Parallel lines intersect at exactly two points! Find out why this is true by supporting Relatively Prime.
The shape of the Internet is hyperbolic. And if you want to know why support my kickstarter Relatively Prime
Plus there’s the original hint on the Kickstarter page:
is it true that you are only 7 seven handshakes from the President, what exactly is a micromort, and how did 39 people commenting on a blog manage to prove a deep theorem … With each episode structured around topics such as: The Shape of Things, Risk, and Calculus Wars, Relatively Prime will illuminate each area by delving into the history, applications, and people that underlie the subject that is the foundation of all science
So if you haven’t got the message yet, find out about these stories by supporting Relatively Prime. My previous post focused on ways you can help as well as donating, including a ready-written blog post for you to put on your blog.
Relatively Prime is failing; what you can do to help
Trying to study mathematics without the human stories is like reading a typed transcript of a Rolling Stones concert. The Relatively Prime project will throw the mathematics television out of the hotel window.
On Friday as I was going to bed I sent a message to Samuel Hansen, try to think of anything we could do to promote Relatively Prime on the Math/Maths podcast this week. By Saturday he had five people who had sent him audio recordings of their reasons for supporting, which he had edited into a 1 min advert for the Kickstarter fundraising project (the quote at the top of this article is from one of those funders). We then had a chat in which I asked Samuel about the project, what sorts of stories he was going to tell, what made it different from other podcasts he does. The result is in the latest Math/Maths Podcast 57 and has been released as an 8 minute audio piece through the acmescience podcasts. Listen to the funders’ reasons and our conversation here.
I’ve become quite vexed with the process of promoting this. If you look at Samuel’s twitter stream you can see him tweeting intriguing questions that will be answered by Relatively Prime. A sample of three:
Can a war over a math discovery make a country to fall years behind in science?…Can slime molds make Steiner trees? I’ll tell you if you support my Kickstarter Relatively Prime…help me tell people how crickets led to a better understanding of Kevin Bacon through math
I thought this was a neat idea and ReTweeted these when I saw them. This, and other marketing Samuel is doing, is attracting interest and, as the graph of donations, cumulative amount and time shows, there is a steady increase but it simply isn’t increasing quickly enough (click to enlarge).
It amazes me that 93 people have so far donated $3,793, but we have a problem. If the whole amount isn’t raised, all donations are cancelled. That’s the way Kickstarter works. So it’s a question of reaching new audiences. Samuel can keep tweeting, and I can keep tweeting on his behalf, but the message isn’t getting further out. I already posted on this blog about the project – “Why I supported Relatively Prime and you should too” – and according to Blogger some 250 people have viewed that post. So I’m running out of new audiences to reach.
This is where you come in. If you haven’t donated to Relatively Prime, please consider chipping in some money. Small amounts sum to larger amounts, so even a small amount will help. There are only eight days to go.
If you have donated, please have a think – is there anything you can do to help promote the project. Post a message on whichever social networks you use. Put a message on your blog. It doesn’t have to be as elaborate as this one! Here’s some text you could use for a quick blog post:
Relatively Prime: Stories from the Mathematical Domain
Relatively Prime will be an 8 episode audio podcast featuring stories from the world of mathematics. Tackling questions like: is it true that you are only 7 seven handshakes from the President, what exactly is a micromort, and how did 39 people commenting on a blog manage to prove a deep theorem. Relatively Prime will feature interviews with leaders of mathematics, as well as the unsung foot soldiers that push the mathematical machine forward. With each episode structured around topics such as: The Shape of Things, Risk, and Calculus Wars, Relatively Prime will illuminate each area by delving into the history, applications, and people that underlie the subject that is the foundation of all science.
I think this could really be an amazing project, but it can only happen with your support. So please, if you can, support it financially, or please twitter, tumblr, reddit, blog, or any other thing about it – you can use the nice link http://bit.ly/relprime
Please just take that block of text – title and 2 paragraphs – and paste it on your own blog. It should only take you seconds and by doing so you will help break the message out of the same circles and reach new, interested people.
Plus, if you have any ability to get something written or an audio interview released though any sort of outlet in the next week please contact Samuel Hansen and give him the opportunity to talk about his project. You get some interesting content for your podcast/radio show/magazine/whatever and you’ll be helping Relatively Prime.
The unplanned impact of mathematics
Time and again, pure mathematics displays an astonishing quality. A piece of mathematics is developed (or discovered) by a mathematician who is, often, following his or her curiosity without a plan for meeting some identified need or application. Then, later, perhaps decades or centuries later, this mathematics fits perfectly into some need or application.
Maths at the East Midlands Big Bang Fair
Recently I was invited to take a mathematical puzzles stall to the East Midlands Big Bang science fair. This took place in Nottingham yesterday. I gathered a few friends from the Nottingham MathsJam group, which I run, and we planned what we could do with a stall. We agreed a list of puzzles we could put together and run. We felt it was important to have solid, physical puzzles and games that would attract people to the stall, including making use of the floor area, as well as more advanced and intriguing items and a takeaway sheet. I wanted the takeaway sheet to provide some advice on problem solving techniques as well as some puzzles to try. There were various extra constraints as well as what we could physically make with no budget, including the difficulty of catering to the wide age range of those attending: 9 to 19!
We met a couple of weekends ago and agreed a set of puzzles, tried them on fellow MathsJammers at the monthly meeting last week and have spent the last week or so making bits and pieces ready for the fair yesterday (particular thanks in that regard are due to John Read and Kathryn Taylor). We called the stall “Solving it like a mathematician”. For big, attractive, fun we had Latin squares with giant playing cards, a puzzle involving arranging tokens inside a giant circle (a hula hoop) and matchstick puzzles with giant matchsticks (bamboo canes). For hands on activity we were making Möbius strips. The more in depth tabletop exercises included: Buffon’s needle for estimating pi (we got 3.78 from 141 throws); a ‘wisdom of crowds’ guessing how much rice is in the jar and rice on the chessboard exponential growth combo; and, the fifteen puzzle and how to tell if an arbitrary position can be solved. Each puzzle had an advice sheet and these as well as the handout are available on a page on my website.
I have been unwell recently so I took a lighter load than I might have for the day. I helped set up the stall and stayed for the first hour, in which not much was happening, then left until the afternoon. Here is a picture of the stall, ready to go but sans visitors.
After the first hour, I left the stall in the capable hands of John Read and Ian Peatfield for the morning. We had agreed a kind of shift system – I didn’t want everyone arriving first thing and us all getting tired mid-afternoon. I went and found a cafe for a quiet read. When I returned after lunch Ian had finished his stint, Alex Corner and Noel France had joined John, and the stall was abuzz! Here is a photo.
Apart from the combination of bamboo cane ‘matches’ and plastic plate ‘coins’ for some of the oversized puzzles leading to a plate spinning class, everything was going as planned. Soon we were joined by Kathryn Taylor and the five of us spent the afternoon rushing around after wave-upon-wave of pupils. That every few minutes another pupil was dragged away from the stall, “put that down now, we’ve got to leave”, by their teachers was, I think, a sign of success. Here’s one more picture from the afternoon.
Overall, I am very pleased with the stall we made and the team who ran it. My first science fair and a very pleasing experience indeed. I hope some of our visitors saw some interest in mathematics and the couple of hundred who took the advice sheet might learn something about approaching problems. Now, to find somewhere to store my new ‘puzzles stall kit’ for next time!
Congratulations should go to David Ault and his team for organising the fair which, as far as I can tell, went very smoothly.