A short update from Katie and Peter.
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Mathematical Objects: Post-season 7 update
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Carnival of Mathematics 220
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of September 2023, is now online at Infinitely Irrational.
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.
Aperiodical News Roundup – September 2023
Here’s a roundup of some things that happened in September 2023 that you may have missed.
Kickstarter for algebraic blackjack game 21X launched
Today is the launch of the Kickstarter for 21X, a new card game from board game studio Naylor Games, which describes itself as ‘the Countdown numbers game meets blackjack’. The creators sent us a copy to play with, and I took it along to Manchester MathsJam for a road test. (Read on for info about how you can win a copy!)
Announcing The Finite Group
“Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a place where maths people could hang out and create cool maths things?” This idea was put to me a couple of years ago, and has stuck with me. It does sound nice.
Fast forward to 2023, and social media is collapsing. Some people have chosen a direction and are marching off towards Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, or a number of other platforms. Some people are trying to keep up with multiple of these, but feeling spread too thin and wondering if it’s worth the effort (ask me how I know!). But many people are taking the opportunity to step back and think again. People are rethinking whether they want to conduct their online social lives in public. There is a surge in private communities, things like WhatsApp groups, Slack channels and Discord rooms. These have the advantage that you aren’t part of the ‘engagement’-driven content push, but they have disadvantages too – you have to know the right people to get into the group.
Meanwhile, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a place where maths people could hang out and create cool maths things?
So we’re creating it. We’re calling it The Finite Group (who doesn’t love a punny maths name?). “We” is Katie Steckles, Sophie Maclean, Matthew Scroggs and me. It’s going to be a maths community that gets together to share and create cool maths things, that supports creators to do their work within the group and on the wider internet.
MathsCity Leeds starting adults-only evening events
The hands-on maths discovery centre MathsCity in Leeds is branching out into adults-only evening events! This is in addition to their current programme of drop-in activities and family events, which already includes plenty of half-term and summer holiday activities for kids and families.
$-e^{i\pi}$ to Watch: 3Blue1Brown
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical video and streaming channels from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the channel and asking them about what they do.
We spoke to Grant Sanderson, author of the 3Blue1Brown channel, which now has over 5 million subscribers and has been posting videos since about 2016.