### The maths of the Grime Cube

Not content with already having five cubes named after him, internet maths phenomenon James Grime has now developed a new Rubik’s cube-style puzzle for internet maths joy merchants Maths Gear. I’ve been slightly involved in the development process, so I thought I’d share some of the interesting maths behind it.

Another name for a Rubik’s cube is ‘the Magic Cube’ – and Dr James Grime wondered if you could make a Magic Cube which incorporates its 2D friend, the Magic Square.

### Paper about student use of a learning space in mathematics

One of the nice things about working in mathematics at Sheffield Hallam University is the environment in which I work. The maths department is a big, open learning space for students surrounded by staff offices. It’s a busy place, full of activity and plenty of opportunities to interact with students and other staff.

This space was renovated for mathematics a little before I arrived. It was designed to enhance student engagement and to create this sense of community, to allow collaborative learning and encourage inter-year interactions.

Over the last year, we conducted a study of use of the space. This included observations of use of the space as well as questionnaires and interviews with students about their use of the space, including students who had studied in the department in the old and new locations.

The results have just been published as ‘The role of informal learning spaces in enhancing student engagement with mathematical sciences‘ by Jeff Waldock, Peter Rowlett, Claire Cornock, Mike Robinson & Hannah Bartholomew, which is online now and will appear in a future issue of International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology (doi:10.1080/0020739X.2016.1262470).

### Carnival of Mathematics 140

The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of October/November, and compiled by Tom, is now online at Mathematics and Coding.

The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.

### Maths Journals for an engaged Sixth Former

Maths legend Colin Wright posed this question on Twitter:

It led to a flurry of interesting replies, and here’s some of them.

### Education bits: new PBS maths series, National Numeracy game, etc.

I’m not normally interested in education stuff, but we’ve had a flurry of emails from various people telling us about their projects, and I’ve got nothing else to do today, so I thought I’d round them up.

### A more equitable statement of the jealous husbands puzzle

Every time I use the jealous husbands river crossing problem, I prefix it with a waffly apology about its formulation. You’ll see what I mean; here’s a standard statement of the puzzle:

Three married couples want to cross a river in a boat that is capable of holding only two people at a time, with the constraint that no woman can be in the presence of another man unless her (jealous) husband is also present. How should they cross the river with the least amount of rowing?

I’m planning to use this again next week. It’s a nice puzzle, good for exercises in problem-solving, particularly for Pólya’s “introduce suitable notation”. I wondered if there could be a better way to formulate the puzzle – one that isn’t so poorly stated in terms of gender equality and sexuality.

### Apéryodical: Roger Apéry’s Mathematical Story

This is a guest post by mathematician and maths communicator Ben Sparks.

## Roger Apéry: 14th November 1916 – 18th December 1994

100 years ago (on 14th November) was born a Frenchman called Roger Apéry. He died in 1994, is buried in Paris, and upon his tombstone is the cryptic inscription:

$1 + \frac{1}{8} + \frac{1}{27} +\frac{1}{64} + \cdots \neq \frac{p}{q}$

Apéry’s gravestone – Image from St. Andrews MacTutor Archive

Roger Apéry – Image from St. Andrews MacTutor Archive

The centenary of Roger Apéry’s birth is an appropriate time to unpack something of this mathematical story.