Double Maths First Thing is looking for the man with the noses.

Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to show that maths, proper maths, is a joyful and creative endeavour. I’m also on a mission to shift a stinker of a cold. At least, I assume it’s a stinker, but I can’t smell it.

Thanks to everyone for their festive messages, especially the north-of-the-border contingent (Tony! Chris! Ayliean! Always lovely to hear from you.)

Links

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a maths paper with good writing is in need of a few diagrams. Luis Huatay (1nfinit0) has shared some editable TikZ scripts to help you overcome that barrier. You can also check out Peter Rowlett’s work on reproducing Scientific American covers in TikZ.

I was fascinated to learn the difference between what a camera records and what it produces, a blog post by Maurycy Z. Also fascinating: Robert Alexander on which bits of the internet have the incorrect time set?

It’s hard to believe I didn’t link to FractalKitty’s Mathober sketches before – and even if I have, they’re worth sharing again.

Legend Henry Segerman has built a widget that expands in three dimensions. I’ve not watched the whole video, but it’s incredibly satisfying.

One of my ambitions for 2026 is to get good at a couple of niche Rubik’s cube events – in particular, 3BLD (blindfolded solving) and FMC (fewest move count). I’ve got some homework to do about the maths behind the methods.

Currently

It’s the last day to submit your answers for Scroggsvent – which you should definitely not do so that I have a better chance of winning the prize.

It’s also getting close to the cut-off for this month’s Carnival of Mathematics, hosted by Sanjeev at the Scribble Board.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have friends and/or colleagues who would enjoy Double Maths First Thing, do send them the link to sign up – they’ll be very welcome here.

If you’ve missed the previous issues of DMFT or – somehow – this one, you can find the archive courtesy of my dear friends at the Aperiodical.

Meanwhile, if there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something you want to tell me.

Until next time,

C