The organisation behind the Breakthrough Prize has announced a competition aimed at school-age kids, called the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, which encourages them to get excited about maths and science, and to make a 10-minute video explaining a challenging concept – which can be an existing bit of research, or something they’ve done themselves.
You're reading: Posts By Katie Steckles
LMS Local Heroes
The London Mathematical Society, as part of its 150th anniversary celebrations, is running a project entitled Local Heroes, in which they have encouraged and funded local museums to put on exhibits about mathematicians from their area. The funding was allocated in 2014, and during 2015 various exhibits have been taking place in different parts of the UK, each celebrating a local number hero.
EDIT: the Lincoln exhibit has been extended until 3rd November – details below.
Puzzlebomb – September 2015
Puzzlebomb is a monthly puzzle compendium. Issue 45 of Puzzlebomb, for September 2015, can be found here:
Puzzlebomb – Issue 45 – September 2015
The solutions to Issue 45 can be found here:
Puzzlebomb – Issue 45 – September 2015 – Solutions
Previous issues of Puzzlebomb, and their solutions, can be found here.
New York Times puzzle is pure game theory
The Upshot is a column in the New York Times based around analytics, data and graphics. (It was conceived around the time when Nate Silver left to work for ESPN). Earlier this week, managing editor David Leonhardt and data journalist Kevin Quealy posted an interesting puzzle, entitled ‘Are You Smarter Than 49,485 other New York Times Readers?’
The puzzle consists of a simple question – you need to pick a number between 0 and 100, and all 49,485 of the responses will be collated (assuming that every single one of the Times’ readership actually enters a number) and averaged. If your guess turns out to be the closest whole number to two-thirds of the average guess, you are clever and you win.
New pentagonal tiling discovered
If you’re into tilings, or just looking to redo your bathroom in the most modern way possible, there’s big news. A team of researchers at the University of Washington-Bothell have discovered a previously unknown way to tile a plane using irregular pentagons.
Carnival of Mathematics 125
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of July, and compiled by Nick, is now online at Data Genetics.
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.
Puzzlebomb – August 2015
Puzzlebomb is a monthly puzzle compendium. Issue 44 of Puzzlebomb, for August 2015, can be found here:
Puzzlebomb – Issue 44 – August 2015
The solutions to Issue 44 can be found here:
Puzzlebomb – Issue 44 – August 2015 – Solutions
Previous issues of Puzzlebomb, and their solutions, can be found here.