Double Maths First Thing knows where its towel is

Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread the joy and delight of puzzling stuff out.

It’s a busy week here, with client work, children at carol services, Christmas preparation, and students suddenly realising they need help for next summer’s exams.

Links

Exciting news from Portugal, at least for geeks of a certain age: there’s a ZX Spectrum museum in Cantanhede, which is a few kilometres northwest of Coimbra. No, YOU’RE planning an entire holiday around it. In the UK, there’s the Museum of Vintage Computers in Ramsgate. I haven’t investigated the Speccy classics here, because I’ll never emerge if I do, but feel free to!

Speaking of early computers, I have a vague recollection of reading about Conway’s Game of Life in a computer book in the 80s. Nathaniel Johnston has a book (available as a free PDF) about the maths of it. I never really got on with Life, but Daniel Shiffman’s Nature of Code looks like a the sort of thing I would like.

Another thing I never really got into was American Football. I prefer footballs where ball-shaped objects are propelled mainly by feet. However, Karen Campe has pointed me at the concept of scorigami – looking out for previously unencountered scorelines. That, I will concede, is something more interesting than proper football has. Is there a similar thing for rugby?

Code hero Christian Lawson-Perfect has taken a hit for the team and gone into three schools for Maths Week England. It sounds exhausting, but also that he got a lot out of it.

I mentioned some time ago a Chalkdust article by Dominika Vasilkova about cardioids in coffee cups; here she is on Mathematical Objects talking about the same topic.

Currently

In December, MathsJam typically runs a week early: I’ll be at Weymouth’s version of it on Tuesday 16th, and you can find your nearest – or start your own at the MathsJam site. This month’s activity sheet features Robin’s dissection puzzle from last time.

Sanjeev at the Scribble Board is hosting this month’s Carnival of Mathematics – use that link to submit anything that belongs.

I hope you’re keeping up with Scroggsvent – I’m enjoying the puzzles as usual, and look forward to finding that I’ve made several mistakes that I’ll joyfully put right.

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