Talking Maths in… Coventry Transport Museum

The sleek, black Thrust SSC land-speed record-holder stretches across a museum gallery, its needle-like nose tapering to a sharp silver point while two enormous jet engine intakes loom behind the cockpit like giant circular tunnels. The machine’s glossy body is decorated with racing logos, thin red-white-green stripes, and a small Union Flag near the front, emphasising its British engineering heritage. Low barriers and information plaques surround the exhibit, while the dramatic proportions - extremely long, low, and narrow - make the car look more like an aircraft fuselage or missile than a conventional car, hinting at the extraordinary speeds it was built to achieve.

This is a guest post from museum educator and mathematician Tom Briggs, about his session at last August’s Talking Maths in Public conference. 2025’s Talking Maths in Public (TMiP) conference took place on the Warwick University campus, but the Saturday morning networking and wind-down venue was the fabulous Coventry Transport Museum. A few weeks earlier … Continue reading Talking Maths in… Coventry Transport Museum