Many of you who are aware of the internet will have noticed that some mild controversy has surrounded a recent Numberphile video, posted last week:
[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww]
You're reading: Posts By Katie Steckles
Festival of the Spoken Nerd in geographical relocation shocker
Anticapitalists, please note: This post is categorised “not-directly-paid-for friendertisement”. We’re plugging a thing our friends do because we think it’s good, but alas, they make money off it. Please read with caution.
Fans of mathematics and science in general will be pleased to hear that they no longer have to travel long distances to see comedy show Festival of the Spoken Nerd – as it’s on tour! The show features Stand-up Mathematician and friend of the Aperiodical Matt Parker, as well as some-time mathematician Steve Mould, and singer of science and maths songs Helen Arney. The comedy trio are visiting over 30 locations around the UK and performing their new show, Full Frontal Nerdity, which I’m assured ‘contains strong language and spreadsheets’, and is guaranteed to ‘feed your brain, tickle your ribs and light your Bunsen burner’. It’s a longer version of the show they performed at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, and would make a great group night out for a maths department or other gathering of scientifically-minded humans (just saying).
Full details of the show, and a list of dates, can be found at the Festival of the Spoken Nerd website.
Spot the Ball (he’s the one talking about maths)
TV maths advocate and certified old person Johnny Ball is hoping to stage what will be a record-breaking World’s Largest Maths Lesson, by filling a stadium with kids and talking to them all about maths at the same time. The event will take place on March 19th, during National Science and Engineering week, and will be aimed at 9-13 year olds.
The current world record is 2,981, set in Nigeria in July 2013, and they’re hoping to smash that using Leeds United’s Elland Road stadium (capacity: 39,460) – Johnny Ball himself has stated he’d be happy with “5, 6, 7 or 8,000 kids” (7 kids probably isn’t enough – better shoot for 8,000). The event is being sponsored by Yorkshire-based boiler maintenance company (?!) Help-Link, and is supported by Leeds City Council.
If you’re a maths teacher in Yorkshire, or know anyone who is, tickets are free and you can apply by emailing the organisers. Details are below.
Further reading:
TV legend hosts bid to stage the world’s biggest maths lesson at stadium, at the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Help-Link to break a Guinness World record in 2014, on the Help-Link website.
Help-Link UK’s Giant Maths Lesson with Johnny Ball, on YouTube.
Event flyer (PDF)
National Science and Engineering week.
via Alex Bellos on Twitter
All Squared, Number 11 – Maths Jam
MathsJam is an annual conference in the UK, and a monthly night in pubs around the world, organised respectively by mathematician and juggler Colin Wright, and stand-up mathematician Matt Parker. We cornered Matt and Colin at the MathsJam conference last November, and talked to them for just over half an hour about the conference, the pub nights, and a disturbing amount about cake.
Here are some links to the things we talked about:
MathsJam website
MathsJam conference website
@MathsJam, on Twitter
MathsJam Bake-off entries, 2013
Matt’s maths mug
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Carnival of Mathematics #106 – December 2013
Happy New Year! And welcome to the first Carnival of Mathematics of 2014. The Carnival is a monthly roundup of blog posts on or related to mathematics, from all over the internet. Posts are submitted by authors and readers, and collated by the host, whose blog it’s posted on. This month, the Carnival has pulled in here at The Aperiodical, and we’re all ready with our party hats for the celebration of mathematical blogging that implies.
Puzzlebomb – January 2014
Puzzlebomb – Issue 25 – January 2014
The solutions to Issue 25 can be found here:
Puzzlebomb – Issue 25 – January 2014 – Solutions
Previous issues of Puzzlebomb, and their solutions, can be found here.
Manchester MathsJam Recap, December-ish 2013
Since I haven’t written a MathsJam recap for a few months, due to extreme busyness, this post will recap things which happened at December’s MathsJam as well as some other things I found in the pile of scrap paper when I went to tidy it all away over New Year.