[vimeo url=http://vimeo.com/47502276]
Matthew Shlian sculpts paper by folding and cutting it.
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Bill Thurston has died
William Thurston died yesterday of cancer, aged 65.
Thurston was one of the greatest contemporary mathematicians; a huge figure in low-dimensional topology. I won’t bother writing out a mathematical biography – Wikipedia and MacTutor have all the relevant information, as usual, and I won’t pretend I know a huge amount about the exact details of Thurston’s achievement. Instead, I’ve tried to gather together a few links from around the web that give an idea of why Prof Thurston was so widely admired.
The Guardian’s open access round-up
These open access round-ups I’ve been doing are a good idea, eh?
The Guardian agrees: they’ve posted their own open access round up. It’s less of a “what’s new” and more of a “the story so far”, though.
David’s de Bruijn sequence card trick
A few days ago, my friend David asked me if I could help him with a card trick. I said I could, hence this post. I managed to pin David down in front of my camera long enough for him to demonstrate the trick; a full explanation follows this video:
A glider on an aperiodic cellular automaton exists!
Good news, everyone! I literally jumped out of my seat and punched the air when I saw this story. It’s as if this site was set up specifically to report on this exact piece of news.
MAA MathFest Day 2
Colm Mulcahy talking about Martin Gardner. Photo by Rodger Hergert.
MathFest continues apace! Here are Colm’s pictures from day 2.
MAA MathFest Day 1
The Mathematical Association of America is throwing a big mathematical party at the moment in Madison, Wisconsin. It’s called MathFest 2012 and promises to be “informative, inspiring, and productive.”
Our intrepid schoolboy reporter Colm Mulcahy is in attendance, and will be sending in pictures and thoughts throughout the three days of the event.