Pat Ashforth has written in to say that she’s released a new free knitting pattern for a Klein bottle hat with a – wait for it – twist!
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3D-printed mathematical objects roundup
3D printers are ace. People are using them to make all sorts of cool things. If you can describe a shape to a computer, it’s very easy to send that description to a 3D printer, which will happily smoosh some substrates together to make a real model of your shape. Mathematicians are able to describe all sorts of crazy shapes, in exactly the amount of detail computers need, so they’ve taken to 3D printing like ducks to water.
Thingiverse is just a repository for designs, so if you see something you like you’ll have to find your own 3D printer. Shapeways makes the objects and posts them to you; prices can vary from just a few euros to hundreds, depending on the size of the object and the materials used.
As with all other kinds of mathematical art, there’s a huge amount of repetition of the same few ideas, but also a few really interesting and unique designs. I’ve picked a couple of representatives from each of the popular topics, but do search around if you want a version with slightly different parameters; you’re bound to find something suitable.
For the past few months I’ve been quietly compiling a list of interesting mathematical objects I’ve found on the main 3D printing catalogues, Thingiverse and Shapeways. With Christmas approaching, I thought now would be as good a time as any to share what I’ve found.
Registration for the Alan Turing Cryptography Competition 2013 is open
Following on from the huge success that was their inaugural competition earlier this year, mathematicians from the University of Manchester have put together another Cryptography Competition in honour of father of modern everything, Alan Turing.
This time, the competition is open to teams of school children from all over the UK, and comprises a six-chapter story featuring Alice and Bob Mike and Ellie, who get “caught up in a cryptographic adventure”. Solving all the puzzles and cracking the codes faster than other people gets you on the leader board, and there are prizes for being near the top as well as extra prizes for randomly-selected teams who’ve solved everything. (You know that since it’s a maths department, their randomisation algorithms will be top-notch). It’s also possible to enter as a non-schoolchild, and check your answers on the site, although you won’t be eligible for prizes. The competition is aimed at UK school years 7-11 (age 11-16), although I can confirm it’s dead good fun for anyone interested in cryptography puzzles themed around exciting storylines.
More information
Alan Turing Cryptography Competition 2013
Manchester University press release
Via Nick Higham on Twitter.
A mathematical monologue
The Mathematics of Change is a comic monologue about a Princeton freshman studying mathematics, performed by ‘acclaimed comic monologuist Josh Kornbluth‘. According to Wikipedia, the monologue ‘describes how despite a love for mathematics he “hit the wall” in his freshman classes at Princeton’ and ‘draws parallels between calculus and life’. Ha – parallels. Good one. From the trailer, it looks like the entire performance takes place in front of an increasingly-covered-in-maths lecture theatre blackboard.
Described as an ‘off-Broadway hit’, the show has toured the US playing in universities and theatres, and is set in the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley. The show’s site features a trailer as well as a link to buy the DVD.
Peter Rowlett interviewed on mathblogging.org
Having featured interviews with two of our three editors in the past (see: Christian P here and Katie here), the lovely people at mathblogging.org have now completed the set and this week feature an interview with “the Bill Bryson of mathematics” (source: overheard at the Maths Jam conference), our own Peter Rowlett.
Why and when did Peter start blogging? Does anything still exist in maths he hasn’t yet blogged about? Find out in ‘Mathematical Instruments: Travels in a Mathematical World‘.
Carnival of Mathematics 93
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of November, is now online at X in Vogue.
The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. For more information about the Carnival of Mathematics, click here.
Recreational Maths Seminar – Seven Staggering Sequences
Yesterday I hosted another recreational maths seminar on Google+. I had a lot of fun! We discussed the paper, Seven Staggering Sequences (PDF), by Neil Sloane. In the paper Sloane, the man behind the fantastic Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, described seven of the sequences he found most especially interesting.
The Hangout was just under an hour and a half long, and we managed to get through five of the seven sequences. Some of them are really hard to understand!
[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBvyaku9Omw]