I made this. Here’s how…
Finding an equation that has the same solution when rotated
You're reading: Posts By Peter Rowlett
- have contributed to the field of science
- be real – so no fictional characters please
- not be alive – Her Majesty the Queen is the only exception
- have shaped thought, innovation, leadership or values in the UK
- inspire people, not divide them
Christmas images using parabolic curves and TikZ
Katie is running an Aperiodical advent calendar (Aperiodvent 2018), with fun maths Christmas treats every day. Behind the door for 7th December was Parabolic Sewing.
This is not unrelated to what I submitted as my entry to The Big Internet Math-Off last summer. I have been revisiting this idea ready for a class next week in my second year programming module.
LaTeX/TikZ to draw a star graph $K_{1,n}$
For a diagram for a class this week, I’ve written a LaTeX command to draw star graphs using TikZ. A star graph $K_{1,n}$ is a graph with a single central node, $n$ radial nodes, and $n$ edges connecting the central node to each radial node. I am sharing this here in case it is useful to anyone else.
Baking Babylonian cuneiform tablets in gingerbread
The MathsJam conference has a baking competition. My friend the archaeologist Stephen O’Brien tweeted a while ago a link to a fun blog post ‘Edible Archaeology: Gingerbread Cuneiform Tablets‘. Babylonian tablets are among the earliest written evidence of mathematics that we have, and were produced by pressing a stylus into wet clay.
So it was that I realised I could enter some Babylonian-style tablets made from gingerbread.
I made a gingerbread reconstruction of a particular tablet, YBC 7289, which Bill Casselman calls “one of the very oldest mathematical diagrams extant“. Bill writes about the notation on the tablet and explains how it shows an approximation for the square root of two. I’m sure I didn’t copy the notation well, because I am just copying marks rather than understanding what I’m writing. I also tried to copy the lines and damage to the tablet. Anyway, here is my effort:
In addition, I used the rest of the dough to make some cuneiform biscuits. I tried to copy characters from Plimpton 322, a Babylonian tablet thought to contain a list of Pythagorean triples. Again, Bill Casselman has some interesting information on Plimpton 322.
Below, I try to give a description of my method.
Kilogram definition to be changed to be based on Planck’s constant
A vote is taking place today at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Paris, to change the definition of the unit of mass, the kilogram.
Nominate a mathematician for the new £50 note
The Bank of England is asking for nominations for someone to picture on the new £50 note, and is encouraging it to be a scientist, engineer or mathematician.
This morning @bankofengland made an exciting announcement in our Mathematics Gallery. It's time for a fresh face on the new £50 note! They want to feature a scientist and are asking you to nominate someone noteworthy. #thinkscience https://t.co/VTMgzIWwrt pic.twitter.com/bghF0qFVrz
— Science Museum (@sciencemuseum) November 2, 2018
Non-UK readers might like to know the £50 note is the largest denomination note, rarely seen by most people.
The Bank of England website says:
You can nominate as many people as you like. But anyone who appears on the new £50 note must:
You can suggest anyone who has contributed to the fields of pure or applied science. That could include: astronomy, biology, bio-technology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medical research, physics, technology and zoology.
More information
Think science for the new £50 note at the Bank of England’s website.
Handing over @mathshistory
On 5th October 2010, eight years ago this week, I sent a tweet from a Twitter account I had registered on behalf of the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM). I was on BSHM Council at the time and, mindful of the Society’s charitable aim to develop awareness of the history of mathematics for the public benefit, I proposed starting a Twitter account. I thought a good way to generate a background level of activity for the account was to tweet a daily mathematician, taking my lead from the MacTutor website facility. So I set up @mathshistory and sent the first tweet, announcing the anniversary of the birth of Bernard Bolzano.
Bernard Bolzano (1781 – 1848) worked to "free calculus from the concept of the infinitesimal" and was born on 5 Oct http://bit.ly/9TV331
— Maths History (@mathshistory) October 5, 2010