The author Siobhan Roberts has sent us a copy of her new book, Genius at Play. There was a strong implication that we should review it. I’ve now read the book, so I’ll do that: I enjoyed it.
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MathML 3.0 is now an ISO standard
Now, uninteresting international standards news!
It’s easy to forget about MathML, because unless you’re a publisher or doing complicated things with data flows, you never need to see it.
I’m not doing a great job of selling this story, am I? I couldn’t even find a picture to illustrate it.
After a lengthy lull in which MathML was deeply unpopular, mainly due to browser makers not supporting it but mainly due to it being extremely hard for the average mathematician to work with, the format which aimed to be able to represent all maths is having a bit of a resurgence these days. The web is catching up – MathJax uses MathML to represent mathematical notation internally, and that is adding pressure to browser makers to implement support for rendering MathML without any additional library.
The W3C have announced that MathML 3.0 is now an ISO/IEC international standard. That doesn’t have much impact on anything other than giving it a stamp of approval, so you can carry on with your day.
See, I told you this wasn’t interesting.
Registration for the 2015 MathsJam conference is now open
Photo credit: Dave Hughes
The MathsJam annual conference is a magical time when maths geeks converge on a conference centre in the middle of nowhere near Stone and spend a weekend sharing their favourite puzzles, games, and mind-blowing maths facts.
Registration for the 2015 weekend, taking place on 6-7 November, has now been opened. More information about the conference, and how to register, can be found on the MathsJam Conference website.
We’ll all be there: join us!
Review: The Illustrated Lilavati, by Somdip Datta
Somdip Datta wrote in to tell us about his illustration of the classic maths textbook, Lilavati, by the Indian mathematician Bhāskara II.
Lilavati contains definitions, algorithms and problems dealing with arithmetic, geometry, combinations, and quadratic equations, all written in meter.
First Clay Award for Dissemination of Mathematical Knowledge goes to Etienne Ghys
The Clay Mathematics Institute is best known for handing out a cool million in return for answering a hard question, much like Chris Tarrant.
Anyway, that’s not all they do! The Institute says it is “dedicated to increasing and disseminating mathematical knowledge”, and that now includes handing out an award for Dissemination of Mathematical Knowledge. The first recipient is research mathematician, Frenchman, and all-round top chap Etienne Ghys.
3Blue1Brown makes really clear videos about maths
3Blue1Brown is Grant Sanderson, who’s writing software to help make videos explaining maths. So far, it’s going pretty well!
Math Stack: a really pretty deck of cards with maths on
Math Stack is a deck of playing cards with mathematical artwork on the faces. The makers call it “a potent and effective learning tool”. I’m not convinced about that, but they are so pretty!
So pretty!
So pretty!