The Aperiodical 

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Save the Ri

By Katie Steckles. Posted January 21, 2013

It’s been in the news this week that the Royal Institution is having financial trouble, and is considering selling its London headquarters at Albemarle Street. The organisation has done a great deal for the popularisation of mathematics over the years, from including mathematics in its series of annual Christmas Lectures (delivered by Christopher Zeeman in 1978, by Ian Stewart in 1997 and Marcus Du Sautoy in 2006) as well as running an excellent series of mathematics and engineering masterclasses for primary and secondary schools, since 1981. They also have a dedicated maths team, who post maths resources on the Ri website.

Professor Sir Harry Kroto, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, has started a blog called “Save the Ri” and posted a highly outraged open letter calling on interested parties to “make it clear to the Government and others in positions of responsibility that we are outraged by the decision to put the premises up for sale”. He’s also posted a statement outlining the situation, and indicating his support of the ‘Save 21 Albemarle Street’ campaign, on Facebook and Twitter.

UPDATE: MP Valerie Vaz has tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament about this, although it currently only has 9 signatures. There’s also an e-petition, calling for the government to purchase the building and let the Ri stay there permanently.

Not mentioned on The Aperiodical last year

By Katie Steckles. Posted January 2, 2013

Here’s a quick round-up of some news stories from the tail end of 2012 that we characteristically failed to write up!

What I did on my holidays, by Colin (aged 35 and a bit)

By Colin Beveridge. Posted November 19, 2012

We’re all back from the big MathsJam weekend. We’ve got loads of material which we’ll start putting up once we’ve recovered our energies. Meanwhile, Colin Beveridge has sent in his report of the event.

Last weekend – as I’m sure all Aperiodical readers know – was the MathsJam annual gathering in Cheshire.

Now, I’ve always hated conferences. Loathed the bloody things. I resented travelling to them, resented preparing talks, resented the uncomfortable beds, the politics, the enforced niceness. I resented the nod-along-and-pretend-you-understand, the gabble-away-with-your-head-down-so-you-can-say-you-gave-a-talk, the questions-for-the-sake-of-advancing-pet-theories, the sessions that lasted weeks. I resented the trying-to-find-veggie-food-in-New-Orleans, the being-expected-to-show-up-for-everything, the having-to-keep-receipts, all of it.

I could have just stayed at my desk and played Tetris. But MathsJam is different.

Follow Friday, 16/11/12

By Katie Steckles. Posted November 16, 2012

Who’s really good at the internet? I mean, really? Do any of us have a handle on that crazy pile of ones and zeroes that sucks away so much of our leisure time while simultaneously providing us with access to all of human knowledge at the click of a button? In another misguided attempt to help us all clamber on top of the ever-increasing pile of data and facts (and opinions), here’s some more recommendations of who to follow on Twitter, and some links and funny things they have recently Twittered.

Dara O Briain: School of Hard Sums to return; maths students sought to take part

By Peter Rowlett. Posted November 12, 2012

A tweet purporting to be ((Yes, I know, but it was retweeted by Thomas Woolley, who should know.)) from the press office of UKTV, the company that owns the channel Dave, has confirmed that the TV show Dara O Briain: School of Hard Sums is to return for a second series (we at least thought we knew this in July). It also says that production company Wild Rover are looking for maths students to take part. The tweet asks you to email maths@wild-rover.com to express an interest. You might remember that the first series, which aired in April-June, did very well compared with other programmes on the channel.

Maths Week Ireland 2012

By Katie Steckles. Posted October 27, 2012

As fans of maths, you’ll all be pleased to hear that in Ireland, they’ve basically got the correct attitude to maths, which is to say they dedicate a whole $\frac{1}{52}$ of their time to it. That’s right, they have an annual Maths Week, now in its ninth year, during which events are organised all over the country, the national and local media get involved, and generally try to get everyone talking about maths.

2nd series of School of Hard Sums

By Katie Steckles. Posted July 29, 2012



Fans of scandalous gossip (and TV channel Dave’s recent foray into maths based light entertainment, Dara O Briain’s School of Hard Sums) will be interested to note the following tweet from Marcus Du Sautoy:

“@pip6390: Is there another series of school of math in the pipe line?” yes! Filming in the new year.

— Marcus du Sautoy (@MarcusduSautoy) July 24, 2012

This presumably refers to the show mentioned above, which featured Marcus as a maths question/task-master, providing both fiendish puzzles and mathematical insight – but who knows? People say all kinds of things on Twitter.

Would you be interested to see another series? Which puzzles would you include? Comments below.