I know many thousands of you have been writing in to Aperiodical HQ asking “when, oh when will we get to read Peter’s PhD thesis?” Well, the moment you’ve all been waiting for is finally here. The university have now put it online as a PDF available via the institutional repository. As a reminder, here’s the abstract:
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George Green: Nottingham’s Magnificent Mathematician
We don’t regard him as a miller, I’m afraid, we regard him as a very eminent mathematician whose work today is still being used in major industries and concerns.
– George Saunders, descendant of George Green, on being asked a question about bags of flour on the Alan Clifford show on BBC Radio Nottingham of 11th September 2014 (starts approx. 1:16).
The above quote is from a short interview with George Saunders and Kathryn Summerwill on BBC local radio about George Green. Green, of whom you may have heard, was a mill-owner in Nottingham and a genius mathematical physicist. The interview marks the opening of an exhibition, curated by Kathryn, ‘George Green: Nottingham’s Magnificent Mathematician‘ in the Weston Gallery at the Lakeside Arts Centre, University of Nottingham.
Cockcroft on puzzles in maths teaching
I am interested in puzzles and games and how they relate to mathematical thinking, not least through my involvement with the Maths Arcade initiative. I was pleased to read what is said on this topic in the 1982 Cockcroft report. This is the report of an inquiry started in 1978 “to consider the teaching of mathematics in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales, with particular regard to its effectiveness and intelligibility and to the match between the mathematical curriculum and the skills required in further education, employment and adult life generally”.
Particularly mathematical Birthday Honours 2014
With the announcement the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, it’s time for the latest in our ongoing Honours-watch series of posts. In this, we search arbitrarily for ‘mathematics’ in the PDFs of the various lists, and hope our well-informed readers fill in the blanks where actual knowledge is required.
IMA 50th Anniversary events
The IMA turns 50 this year, and is holding two celebration events and publishing a book.
Podcasts for a university mathematics student
Yesterday, I was asked by Mariana Farinha for podcasts I would recommend to a college student of Mathematics. I assume this is college in the American sense, i.e. university. Though targetting an audience is usually a broad business, so with a suitable margin of error I replied with a few, retweeted the request and a few others replied. Here are the suggestions. What would you recommend? Leave a comment!
My week at BCME8
This week I’m contributing to the 8th British Congress of Mathematics Education (BCME). If you’re going, I hope to see you there! (I’ll be there Monday after dinner and Wednesday all day; otherwise it’s a normal teaching week for us.)
I’m involved with three sessions – a fun Maths Jam, a ‘how I used history in my teaching’ workshop and a research talk based on half my PhD. Here are the details: