Did you like playing with shape sorters as a toddler, but find them too simple as an adult? Well, I’ve got good news for you.
You're reading: Columns
- Public Key Cryptography (29 January) in which I describe the famous work of HLF regulars Diffie and Hellman
- A puzzle ‘four’ the new year (11 January) in which I discuss number puzzles, which do and don’t involve the digits 2, 0, 1 and 9
- The Twelve Facts of Christmas: Pascal’s Triangle (20 December), a festive round-up of mathematical facts
- Right on the Money (4 December) in which I wonder if the new British £50 will have a mathematician on it
- Measuring the Change (21 November) on the forthcoming redefinition of the kilogram
- Permutations and Tribulations (13 November) on the superpermutations discovery made anonymously on the internet
- Katherine Johnson (7 September) on life of the mathematician
- Game, SET and maths (16 August) about the card game SET
- New shape discovered – right under your nose (6 August) in which I describe the newly-discovered scutoid shape, found in nose cells
- Flexagons and false advertising (27 July) in which I explain how ordinary paper can be much more impressive if you flex it, Martin Gardner-style
- Few tile attempts (5 July) in which I discuss tilings and tessellations, and then decide how to redecorate my bathroom
- Cake and Coincidence (21 June) in which a striking coincidence prompts a discussion on probability and birthdays
- The Bridges of Königsberg (29 May) discussing the famous problem in graph theory
- A truly special occasion (18 May) all about myself and my partner’s Golden (ratio) wedding anniversary
- Colouring in like a mathematician (3 May) covering the then-current Chromatic Number discovery
Carnival of Mathematics 167
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of February, is now online at Tom Rocks Maths.
The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
Talking to my three-year-old about my undergraduate mathematics teaching
One day, a couple of months ago, I was walking my son to nursery and he asked what I was doing that day. I said I was going to do some teaching. What about? he asked. Well.
Ning Nang Nong Latin square
My son is obsessed with the Spike Milligan nonsense poem ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’. Here’s a video of Spike reciting it.
This weekend, he asked me to help him learn it. I’ve tried to memorise it before, to save having to find the book when he wants me to recite it. But somehow, it’s never quite stuck. I can remember all the bits and the basic order (Cows-Trees-Mice), and know what happens after the lines ending “Nong” (“Cows go bong”), “Ning” (“Trees go ping”) and “Nang” (“Mice go clang”). What I struggle with is remembering which order the “Ning”, “Nang” and “Nong” go before the one that rhymes with what comes next.
At the weekend, I wrote “Ning”, “Nang” and “Nong” on pieces of paper and we rearranged them as we read the poem. I realised my difficulty is a mathematician pattern-spotting one. There’s a not-quite Latin square embedded in the poem.
Making Tricurves
Tim Lexen has written a series of posts on the topic of Tricurves: Bending the Law of Sines, Combining Tricurves and Phantom Tiling. In this latest post, Tim has been working with our own Katie Steckles to turn Tricurves into real objects to play with.
When you discover an interesting mathematical shape or object, there’s a strong instinct to play with it – maybe by drawing sketches and doodles to test the limits of the idea. But in the case of Tricurves, drawing an accurate shape takes a little time, and it doesn’t lend itself well to idle experimentation.
Producing a physical version of a shape, in enough quantity to allow for experimentation, makes it much more tangible. In our own respective locations, we’ve each made use of laser cutting facilities to produce wooden Tricurve tiles to play with, and we encourage you to join in.
Nine months of HLF blogging
I’ve now been writing fortnightly blog posts for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum’s Spektrum blog for over nine months. Small trumpet noises! Here’s what I’ve been writing about:
I’ll continue writing posts for HLF’s Spektrum blog as long as they want me to – keep checking their Twitter feed or the blog’s RSS feed to see them as they appear!
Carnival of Mathematics 166
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of January, is now online at Math With Bad Drawings.
The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.