These are the show notes for episode 13 of the Travels in a Mathematical World podcast. 13 is prime and is the number of Archimedian solids, which includes the Truncated Icosahedron, the shape used in the construction of common footballs and is a model of the structure of the fullerene allotrope of carbon, which is carbon-60. More about the number 13 from Number Gossip.

In the regular Maths History series, Noel-Ann Bradshaw of the University of Greenwich and also Meetings Co-ordinator of the British Society for the History of Mathematics talks about the life of Florence Nightingale. You can read a comprehensive biography of Florence Nightingale at MacTutor and a wealth of information at the Florence Nightingale museum. There are some links to further information on her statistics at “Florence Nightingale – Statistical Links“.

I said in the episode I would post a link to the Theorem of the Day website by Robin Whitty, who sent a kind email and put a link to the podcast on that website.

You can find out more about my work with the IMA by reading this blog and visiting www.ima.org.uk/student.

N.B. The widely quoted story of Sylvester being Nightingale’s tutor has been questioned but dates to a contemporary obituary of Sylvester. For details please see: James Joseph Sylvester: Jewish Mathematician in a Victorian World by Karen Hunger Parshall. Johns Hopkins University Press 2006.