The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of October, is now online at Double Root.
The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
Here’s a collection of some things that have been happening (and will be happening) in maths this month (and next month).
The British Society for the History of Mathematics have announced their annual Neil Bibby Awards, which have been awarded to Ciarán Mac an Bhaird and Michael Barany. The award winners receive £400 each, and will be expected to deliver some schools talks and produce resources for the BHSM website. More information about the Bibby Awards can be found on the BSHM website. (via @MathsHistory on Twitter).
The British Society for the History of Mathematics have also announced the winners of their annual schools and undergraduate essay prizes:
These winners and the runners up for each prize are announced in this Twitter thread: “Our Schools and Undergraduate Prizes announcements!!!”.
Carnegie Mellon University has been gifted $20 million by blockchain pioneer Charles Hoskinson to establish the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics. The center will be part of Dietrich College and will “advance mathematical research by improving global access to knowledge and resources for mathematics researchers, educators and learners”. For more information read the press release here. (via @KevinZollman on Twitter).
This coming Ada Lovelace Day, Tuesday 12 October, the organisers of Ada Lovelace Day live are putting on a series of online webinars on topics including engineering, tech and games, and the science of hypersleep. Tickets are free, and the events will be streamed live on YouTube and Facebook.
School student stage show outfit Maths Inspiration are putting on a special online show during COP26, themed around the mathematics of climate. Schools can pay a flat fee of £75+VAT to have as many students as they want join and watch live, and speakers include Matt Parker, Sammie Buzzard and Hugh Hunt. (via @MathsInspiratn on Twitter).
It’s finally happening! The UK’s first hands-on maths discovery centre, MathsCity, will be opening in Leeds on 5th October. Open from 10am-5pm Tuesday-Sunday, in Leeds Trinity Shopping Centre, the mathematical wonderland will include giant bubbles, a laser ‘ring of fire’ and puzzles to solve. Go go go! (via @MathsCityLeeds on Twitter).
On 15th October, the Royal Irish Academy is hosting the Hamilton Lecture 2021, featuring Professor Caroline Series, who’ll be talking about Glimpses in Hyperbolic Geometry. The lecture will take place online, followed by a Q&A, and tickets are free but booking is required. And look, they did such a cool poster (above)!
Here’s a round-up of mathematical and maths-adjacent things that happened in the world this month-and-a-half.
New record calculation of π – a team in Switzerland have calculated π to a record accuracy of 62.8 trillion digits (that’s around 10 tau trillion – a masterful troll). For more background, read New mathematical record: what’s the point of calculating pi? in the Guardian, which strikes a nice balance between understanding that π is important but that this kind of record-setting is largely stamp collecting.
Odd subgraphs result – There’s also a nice writeup in Quanta of a new proof confirming a fact about odd graphs (that every graph has a subgraph at least $\frac{1}{10000}$ of its own size that contains entirely odd vertices).
P vs NP proof – Logician Martin Dowd is claiming a proof of P≠NP “using a Godel diagonalization argument involving representing formulas”. As per @HigherGeometer’s tweet, mathematicians will be looking for the ‘nearly inevitable slip’, and we’ll report it here if we notice an announcement, probably.
Prime Gap now down to 20 – Another claimed proof, this time by arithmetic geometer Chunlei Liu, confirming that there are infinitely many primes at most 20 apart – an improvement on prior work by Zhang/Polymath8/Tao/Maynard, and using a similar method.
Awards news – This year’s Royal Society Medals have been awarded, and recipients include Prof. Frances Kirwan who has been awarded the Sylvester Medal “for her research on quotients in algebraic geometry, including links with symplectic geometry and topology, which has had many applications”, and Prof. June Barrow-Green who receives the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal and Lecture “for her research in 19th and 20th century mathematics, notably on historical roots of modern computing, dynamical systems and the three-body problem. Her work places special emphasis on the under-representation of women in historical narratives and in contemporary mathematics.”
Maths competition award nominations – The World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions has put out a call for nominations for the Erdos Award 2022, which recognises the contributions of “mathematicians who have played a significant role in the development of mathematical challenges at the national or international level and which have been a stimulus for the enrichment of mathematics learning”. If you know someone who runs maths competitions and deserves an award, it’d be great to see some more UK winners!
Win a free Schools Workshop – ICMS and Maths Week Scotland are excited to announce a 2021 School Workshop competition, in which Scottish secondary schools can register themselves on the Maths Week Scotland website and enter to win an interactive virtual maths workshop delivered by Ben Sparks or Katie Steckles (that’s me), during Maths Week Scotland.
Nira vs Specsavers – We previously reported on Nira Chamberlain’s social media crusades to stop brands from being flippant about maths – and it looks like he’s had some more success. Following his complaint about an unhelpful leaflet put out by Specsavers (in which algebra was described as ‘silly’ and used as a throwaway example of something hard) they’ve responded to him personally and withdrawn the leaflet.
Gathering For Gardner is postponed again – with a heavy heart, the organisers of Gathering For Gardner 14 have made the tough call, in light of “the continuing worsening of the COVID-19 situation in Georgia, with record-breaking numbers of infections, and an increase in hospitalizations throughout the state”, to postpone this year’s event to 2022. Tickets already booked can be transferred to next year’s event or fully refunded.
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of August, is now online at Math ∩ Programming.
The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
A conversation about mathematical jokes, humour and folklore inspired by a sheep, at least one side of which is black. Presented by Katie Steckles and Peter Rowlett.
The jokes sent to Peter on Twitter that we mention can be found in the replies to this tweet.
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The team that brought you the 24 Hour Maths Magic Show last October are at it again, and are planning a semi-regular evening YouTube variety show called Clopen Mic Night, with short segments from a selection of mathematical guests, including comedy, music, demonstrations, magic, puzzles and art, showcasing some top maths communicators and hopefully providing a fun night in. The event is supported by Talking Maths in Public, a network for maths communicators based in the UK, and this first show will take place alongside their 2021 conference event.
It’s called Clopen Mic Night because it’s both an open mic night (in the sense that you’ll see a variety of different people doing different things) and a closed mic night (in that the organisers curate the line-up to ensure a variety of quality acts). If you’ve not encountered the concept of a clopen set, it describes a set that is both open and closed. Usually things are clopen for tedious technical reasons – the empty set and the whole set are both trivially clopen, and most interesting examples crop up in awkwardly-defined sets with non-standard topologies and distance metrics.
The first event is taking place on Thursday 26th August, from 8-9pm, on my YouTube channel, and you can watch along for free, join in with the chat, and drop a coin in our virtual tip bucket if you like what you see. This will hopefully be the first of many such shows (assuming it all goes well!) and for future shows we’ll be looking for acts to join us – anyone participating will also be able to get advice and feedback on their bit in various ways, and we’re hoping it’ll be a chance for people to try out fun new material and showcase the best maths communication has to offer.
For more information about the show, including the lineup for this first event, you can visit the Clopen Mic Night website and sign up for a reminder before each show so you don’t miss it. For updates on future events and how to apply to perform (once that becomes a thing), check the @ClopenMic twitter account.
A conversation about mathematics inspired by a plate of biscuits. Presented by Katie Steckles and Peter Rowlett, with special guest Alison Kiddle. What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Alison’s Noticing and wondering page.
We also mentioned A Problem Squared Episode 014 = Final Cheese Drama and Quick-Fire-O-Rama.
You can see Peter’s kitchen floor in this tweet.
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