There is a new page collating all previous Carnival of Mathematics posts and listing future hosts, and through which you can volunteer to host future Carnivals: “Carnival of Mathematics“.
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MacMahon Squares
In my capacity as someone who occasionally turns up and does maths at people, I often find myself exposed to ‘starter puzzles’ – things the organisers provide to whichever group of humans have come to see me do maths, to give them something to do in any waiting time before the event starts. This is, of course, a fantastic source of ideas for the MathsJam I run in Manchester, as well as just being great for me as I get to have a go at them all.
Advance in snowflake growth simulation
Scientific American are reporting that “a team of mathematicians has for the first time succeeded in simulating a panoply of snowflake shapes using basic conservation laws, such as preserving the number of water molecules in the air”.
This explains that previous simulations often simulate the crystal surface using interlocking triangles, but that:
the triangles often deform and collapse in simulations, leading to singularities that bring the simulation to an abrupt halt… Garcke’s team got around this difficulty by devising a method to describe the curvature and other geometric information about the snowflake surface so that it could be appropriately encoded into a computer.
On Disreputable Numbers
One would be hard put to find a set of whole numbers with a more fascinating history and more elegant properties surrounded by greater depths of mystery — and more totally useless — than the perfect numbers.
— Martin Gardner
There are countless ways to classify integers. Happy, perfect, friendly, sociable, abundant, extravagant, cute, interesting, frugal, deficient, hungry, undulating, weird, vampire… the list goes on. But how useful are such classifications, beyond their inherent interestingness, and as a hook to get people into number theory?
Manchester MathsJam March 2012 Recap
This month’s MathsJam was well attended – we matched last month’s turnout of 11, albeit one of that number was in the form of Ed Bradshaw, the organiser of the Washington DC MathsJam. For Ed, it was 4pm and he was in his office, using Google Plus for a live video connection to a MathsJam halfway around the world. The video connection worked fine, although in a noisy pub we struggled to hear what Ed was saying on my laptop’s tiny speakers, so for some of the evening we used headphones and took it in turns to be in conversation with Ed.
Behind closed doors: the Spanish intelligence service
When I was a student there was a door in the basement of the university library marked “This door must remained closed at all times”. I remember joking that perhaps no one could remember what was behind it, and of course they couldn’t check.
The BBC are reporting that GCHQ have received two Engima machines used in the Spanish civil war, in exchange for a German four rotor Naval Enigma machine recovered from Flensburg in May 1945, an Enigma rotor box and related documents.
The machines were apparently discovered “almost by chance, only a few years ago, in a secret room at the Spanish Ministry of Defence in Madrid.” The BBC quotes Felix Sanz, the director of Spain’s intelligence service, saying:
Nobody entered there because it was very secret, and one day somebody said ‘Well if it is so secret, perhaps there is something secret inside.’ They entered and saw a small office where all the encryption was produced during not only the civil war but in the years right afterwards.
It’s good to hear the Spanish intelligence service is taking secrecy so seriously, to almost Monty Python levels of silliness.
An interesting article, it also gives a hint at international co-operation. Mr Sanz is quoted saying:
In today’s world it is impossible to work alone. You need friends and allies. I knock at the door of the British intelligence – all three agencies – as many occasions as I need it and I always get a response. And I hope on the occasion where the British services knock at my door, when they leave my house they leave with a sense they have been helped also.
I find this last sentence interesting. It may be entirely coincidental, or a product of translation, but it doesn’t actually say that he helps the British intelligence services. This reminds me of a joke in the opening episode of the excellent Yes, Minister, in which the meeting of the Minister, Jim Hacker, and his civil servant Sir Humphrey, contains the following dialogue:
Bernard Woolley: “I believe you know each other.”
Sir Humphrey: “Yes, we did cross swords when the Minister gave me a grilling over the estimates in the Public Accounts Committee.”
Jim Hacker: “I wouldn’t say that.”
Sir Humphrey: “You came up with all of the questions I hoped nobody would ask.”
Jim Hacker: “Well, opposition is about asking awkward questions.”
Sir Humphrey: “And government is about not answering them.”
Jim Hacker: “Well, you answered all mine anyway.”
Sir Humphrey: “I’m glad you thought so, Minister.”
Carnival of Mathematics – The Next Generation
Mike Croucher has written a post about the next incarnation of the Carnival of Maths, which we are coordinating.