This month saw a record high turnout, requiring as many as three tables being pushed together, a whole bag of maltesers and a tin of shortbread someone got for Christmas and hadn’t eaten yet. We also had one new attendee who had previously been a regular at Newcastle MathsJam, and has now moved to Manchester for a PhD. Not that it’s a competition or anything, but in your face Newcastle. In fact, the turnout was so large that I couldn’t even keep track of everything that was going on, and when I collected in all the scrap paper I found people had written down several things I wasn’t aware we talked about, including the method for cube rooting large numbers used by Maths Busking.
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"I’m not a mathematician, the maths I’m doing is really just basic modelling"
Last week I attended the first Institute of Mathematics and its Applications Employers’ Forum. The theme was ‘Employability of Mathematics Graduates’. This was an interesting event with many useful views and viewpoints on display.
One speaker, talking about how mathematics student applicants to the graduate training scheme fare, mentioned that during the technical interview some such applicants seem to expect that they will be asked detailed questions about their final year modules. In fact, the questions asked are more like A-level mechanics and this trips up many students. This chimes with a problem I’ve thought about previously about attitudes to mathematics from mathematicians.
I have noticed that many graduate mathematicians who work in mathematical jobs will tell me “I’m not a mathematician, the maths I’m doing is really just basic modelling”. Students and graduates (including, if I think back, me when I graduated) seem to think that if the mathematics they are doing after graduation isn’t at least as hard as final year undergraduate mathematics, then it can’t be ‘real mathematics’ and they can’t be a ‘real mathematician’. As they haven’t moved onto a higher degree to do more advanced mathematics, they must have failed as mathematicians.
I came across this problem somewhat when I worked for the IMA because someone who doesn’t consider themselves a mathematician might ask: since I’m no longer a mathematician, why would I join the mathematicians’ professional body?
I think it is terribly sad when graduates think this. I must be careful here: of course there is more advanced applied mathematics but many graduates find themselves applying fairly basic mathematics to problems and therefore think that they have regressed to an earlier stage of their mathematical development. This rigorously hierarchical view of mathematics – particularly from people who are using mathematics to make a substantial contribution – seems to me to be a real shame. In fact, final year undergraduate mathematics is pretty far up the tree – so far, if we continue the analogy, that it can’t support very many people – but it’s hard to appreciate this when, to overuse the analogy, you’re only looking at the few academic researchers balancing on higher branches.
“If I apply for a job using mathematics, they must want to quiz me about what I learned at the culmination of my degree. And since they’re asking me questions about forces and moments using techniques from A-level, then this can’t be real mathematics and I can’t be a real mathematician.” It’s a real problem.
This is part of where I think the value lies in the IMA series of conferences for the ‘Early Career Mathematician’. Since many mathematicians in industry think of themselves as ‘someone who used to do mathematics’ and may well be the only mathematics graduate in their team/department/company, it can be a very powerful experience to come together and meet others in similar positions. If you’ll excuse a small plug, I am chairing the next of these conferences, the IMA Early Career Mathematicians’ Autumn Conference 2012, in Greenwich in November. Registration is now open. Come along!
Aperiodical Round Up 7: stamp of approval
Ladies and gentlemen, every now and then there comes a time when a man has gathered more maths links than he can comfortably hold on to and he is forced to loosen his grip, allowing the more wriggly ones a chance to slip away and make a break for freedom. On such occasions, the sticky surface of a specially-prepared blog post can be used to trap those links, preserving them in digital formaldehyde for closer inspection by the educated viewer.
That’s right: after literally a third of a year, I’m still Christian Perfect and here’s another Aperiodical Round Up!
I’m going to start with computers and calculators, because here’s a really good one: Thomas Fowler’s ternary calculating machine. It uses balanced ternary arithmetic for a variety of reasons which become very interesting when you build your own calculator. Mark Glusker did build his own calculator; that’s a picture of him on the right, looking quietly satisfied with a job well done. No specimens or drawings of the original calculator exist, so Mr Glusker’s machine is only representative of his idea of how it might have looked.
Follow Friday, 21/9/12
Since all the cool kids are using Twitter these days, this is the first in a sporadic series of Twitter recommendation posts which will tend to take place on Fridays. If you’re not on Twitter, feel free to use this as a source of interesting facts and links, but if you are, I’ll post tweets here from users I think it’s worth following (with associated qualifications).
I told you so: Relatively Prime has begun
Do you remember when I told you why I supported Relatively Prime and you should too? I said:
Samuel is an enthusiastic communicator of mathematics and has the technical skills to make an excellent producer of content. You may have enjoyed what he does as my co-host on the Math/Maths Podcast, or his interview show Strongly Connected Components, or his irreverent maths chat show Combinations and Permutations. Much as these are good outputs, they all have an element of being as good as they be in spare time. I don’t know about you, but of the two options on his crossroads I would like to live in a world where Samuel can take his enthusiasm and technical expertise and spend some serious time concerning himself with mathematics communication.
Well, now is my chance to say “I told you so”. Following that amazing day when I told you that next time you wake up, Relatively Prime will be a missed opportunity unless you act, 159 people donated to make the project a reality and Samuel has spent 11 months doing the work: travelling the world, recording interviews and editing (so much editing).
Now he has released the first episode of this eight-part audio documentary series. And it’s good!
The Toolbox
The mathematics that we all learn in school is great. No, really, it is. How can anyone get through life without knowing how to add or subtract. Multiply or divide. Solve for an unknown or factor a polynomial. OK, you might be able to get through life without that last one, but the point still stands, the mathematics that we all learn in school is great. It isn’t everything though. There are a lot of other tools that mathematics has to offer that could enrich people’s lives. On this episode Samuel Hansen rummages through his mathematical tool box and showcases three tools he feel are going to be very important in the coming years.
The series will run until 5th November, with a new episode being released every Monday. (And I hear the completion of his achievement will be marked with national fireworks.) The show is available to download directly at the show’s website, but don’t forget to subscribe through iTunes or through the RSS Feed.
Plus it’s a chance to check how well he stuck to those hints he gave about Relatively Prime content, and tease him about the inevitable changes of plan!
Relatively Prime, All in a Name
“Prime. Prime? Prime! Prime factors, twin primes, pseudo-primes? No, no no. Relatively Prime? Yes, Relatively Prime.”
I have a problem, no matter how good an idea I have I can not start to work on it until I have a name. Some names are easy, Combination and Permutations was a name well before I ever had a show to use it, Science Sparring Society followed directly from the concept, and ACMEScience NEWS NOW actually told me what type of show I would be making. Other names are hard.
I had the underlying idea for Relatively Prime (get the first episode here) in an extreme bout of egotism and delusion of grandeur where I spent too long listening to Radio Lab, This American Life, and Snap Judgment and began to think, “Hey, I could do that, but for math.”
To teach, must I principally research?
A couple of weeks ago at the HE STEM Conference I saw a keynote lecture by Sir Alan Langlands, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England. During a questions session following this, I was surprised to be handed the microphone but apparently I had raised my hand. I asked a question. Quite a number of people approached me during the remaining day-and-a-half of the conference to say what a good question it had been so I thought I would share it here.
Sir Alan had spoken about the challenges facing STEM in HE and about the legacy of the National HE STEM Programme. On the latter, reflecting the hope that much of the HE STEM activity will develop into ongoing practice in universities, he said he hoped we wouldn’t think of this as the end but as a beginning. He also spoke about challenges affecting the sector in terms of Goverment initiatives and other factors, and the important of teaching and learning, research, etc. When I was handed the microphone I said into this something like the following.
I was interested that you spoke about looking to the future. I work for a former Higher Education Academy Subject Centre on a project funded by the National HE STEM Programme. So my contract ends tomorrow1. I aspire to being a lecturer who takes a professional research interest in his teaching but almost every job advert I read has number 1 ‘a PhD in mathematics’ and number 2 ‘ability to bring in research income’. So, while I shouldn’t ask such a personal question, I suppose I’m asking: should I acquire a research topic or plan a different career?
I’m afraid that extreme nervousness has made what happened next a bit of a blur. I certainly don’t feel like I got a satisfactory answer and several of the people who congratulated me on my question said as much to me. Perhaps someone who was there will be able to fill in more of the details via the comments.
He, quite rightly, addressed the general point rather than my specific circumstances. He certainly spoke about some universities increasingly making available career routes – both hiring new people and allowing for promotion – based on merit attached to teaching activities, and suggested that I might need to ‘shop around’ to find an institution to suit me. This is true, in that I aware of departments more friendly to my aims and I sometimes meet people who are employed as Teaching Fellows or similar who talk of promotion possibilities linked to teaching achievements. However, the norm is still to hire a researcher who, begrudgingly, indifferently or happily, is required to teach as a secondary objective. This is what I was getting at with my job advert for the University of Excellence.
I should be clear that I am not against mathematical research in any way. It’s just that I am drawn to the challenge of helping people to understand something about mathematics and its applications, and I feel that people who are willing to spend their time and energy on better teaching, outreach, educational research, etc. should have a more prominent place in the system.
1. These are both programmes formally funded by HEFCE so really I was making an unfair swipe here. I hope it didn’t make me seem too much the disgruntled ex-employee but I was a little frustrated at the suggestion that the expiry of the funding for my employment should be viewed as an exciting new beginning.