Double Maths First Thing is off on a nerdy day trip

Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread the joy and delight of mathematical thinking and practice.

I’m currently embroiled in discussions over an observation shared by Colin Wright and resurfaced by Chris Smith in his excellent weekly newsletter (email aap03102[at]gmail[dot]com if you want to sign up for that). I’ve written about it previously, but it’s the sort of question that gives more the more you look into it.

Links

I had a bit of a pop at bad graphs last week, so let’s rebalance a bit. Nicola Rennie has a lovely article about making line graphs more accessible, and I’ve been enjoying Stefan Bohacek’s ‘Data of New York’ series. On an entirely different scale (so to speak), Hamid Naderi Yaganeh creates artwork defined by equations. (While that’s super-impressive, I’d love to know more about the process. It feels a bit Tupperish to me.)

What time is it? As Father Gregory once said after making the rookie error of asking Young Fred to a question, “that was a better… and much more comprehensive… answer than I’d have given.” Also in time, there are apparently two major computer-clock crises scheduled for 2038, which some people claim is closer to now than the Millennium Bug. Obvious lies.

You need a slide rule in your kitchen.

I know Wordle was so 2020 and a sell-out and all the rest of it. Wordall is pretty good. Perhaps less good than Andrew Taylor’s games, but still good.

Someone (likely Tom Briggs) reminded me of the existence of Singmaster’s Mathematical Gazetteer Of The British Isles, which I’m sure I’ve linked to before. Similarly, Nerdy Day Trips has all sorts of suggestions on where to spend time being a geek. Bizarrely, it didn’t have MathsWorld UK listed, but it should now.

Currently

Speaking of MathsWorld, Rob Eastaway will be talking about Shakespeare’s London there on Thursday, January 29th, 6:50pm. Tickets £5-£8.

I got told off for not mentioning last week’s Finite Group livestream, all about Scroggsvent. Sorry, generators! I’ve not yet caught up with it, but am looking forward to it.

This month’s Carnival is close to closing – get your submissions rolled up ready, and Laura Walsh at Letters and Words will collate them into a post.

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