Gradually, gradually, the mathematicians are taking over the world. Having already conquered (by which I mean ‘colonised pubs once a month’) in places as far-flung as Melbourne, Houston, Bombay and Edinburgh, MathsJam will be making its debut in Cape Town, South Africa on Tuesday February 19th.
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The perfect formula for mathsiness
It’s mid-January, which means it’s time for the tabloids to trot out their annual “this is the most miserable day of the whole year!” story — before they spend the rest of the year blaming immigration, youth and political correctness for problems they’ve spent the last year stoking up.
Ahem.
Towards a working definition of the terrifying numbers
Someone — it may have been Matt Parker — told the MathsJam conference last weekend there was now a terrifying number of monthly MathsJam meetups, and a murmur went around the room. It was just about the only audience in the world where more than a couple of people would have asked “how do you define a terrifying number?”
What I did on my holidays, by Colin (aged 35 and a bit)
We’re all back from the big MathsJam weekend. We’ve got loads of material which we’ll start putting up once we’ve recovered our energies. Meanwhile, Colin Beveridge has sent in his report of the event.
Last weekend – as I’m sure all Aperiodical readers know – was the MathsJam annual gathering in Cheshire.
Now, I’ve always hated conferences. Loathed the bloody things. I resented travelling to them, resented preparing talks, resented the uncomfortable beds, the politics, the enforced niceness. I resented the nod-along-and-pretend-you-understand, the gabble-away-with-your-head-down-so-you-can-say-you-gave-a-talk, the questions-for-the-sake-of-advancing-pet-theories, the sessions that lasted weeks. I resented the trying-to-find-veggie-food-in-New-Orleans, the being-expected-to-show-up-for-everything, the having-to-keep-receipts, all of it.
I could have just stayed at my desk and played Tetris. But MathsJam is different.
The Super Subtraction Feat
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How I Unofficially Broke The World Record That Never Was
One of the 70-digit subtraction sums I did for training purposes.
In April, a gentleman called B. Sai Kiran became, briefly, internet-famous for doing arithmetic. In Hyderabad, he subtracted a 70-digit number from another in the barest smidgen over a minute – 60.05 seconds, at the second attempt.