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Listen to the premiere of “A Man from the Future”

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted July 25, 2014

I could have sworn we posted about the fact the Pet Shop Boys were writing some music about Alan Turing, but I can’t find anything in the archives.

Anyway, the Pet Shop Boys have written a piece of music “inspired by codebreaker Alan Turing”, titled A Man from the Future (not The Man from the Future, the 2011 Brazilian classic), and it was performed for the first time on Wednesday as part of the BBC’s Proms season.

It’s not my cup of tea in the least bit, but we’ve covered every other bit of never-ending Turing centenary news so why not this one?

You can listen to the performance on BBC Radio 3 but, thanks to The Unique Way the iPlayer Works, the actual program starts about six minutes in.

An Alan Turing expert watches the “The Imitation Game” trailer

By James Grime. Posted July 24, 2014

We weren’t sure quite what to think about the recently-released trailer for The Imitation Game. We don’t know enough about either films or Alan Turing to give an authoritative opinion. James Grime, on the other hand, knows a lot about both…

The trailer for the highly anticipated new film about mathematician Alan Turing was released this week. Alan Turing was not only a mathematician, but also the father of computer science and World War II code breaker. The trailer itself looks fantastic and has me super excited to see the film when it is released this November.

[youtube url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg85ggZSHMw]

The Imitation Game stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing and Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke. Clarke herself was a mathematician, Bletchley Park code breaker and, briefly, Turing’s fiancée.

The script featured on Hollywood’s blacklist, a list of the best unproduced screenplays, and tells the story of Turing’s early days at Bletchley Park, his work breaking the infamous German Enigma code, and his relationship with Clarke. An early draft of the script caused concern that it over emphasised Turing and Clarke’s relationship, and was accused of “straightwashing” the story of Turing, who was later arrested and convicted for homosexuality.

After seeing the trailer I am more confident it’s going to be done right. So let’s break it down:

Maths movie round up

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted July 22, 2014

You wait and wait for a movie about a mathematical genius, and then three come at once. I’ve got Turing, I’ve got Ramanujan, I’ve got Erdős.

Twin primes go to Washington

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted July 13, 2014

This isn’t new, but it just came to my attention and it’s fun: US Representative Jerry McNerney, an engineer by trade, got so excited by the recent twin prime conjecture advances that he just had to tell the rest of the House about it.

[youtube url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh6GCY9i6tY]

I don’t know how the American parliament works – did a constituent ask Rep McNerney to talk about this, or do politicians regularly just talk about their interests?

Carnival of Mathematics 112

By Katie Steckles. Posted July 11, 2014

The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of June, and compiled by Robin Whitty, is now online at Theorem of the Day.

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.