I asked in the previous post for suggestions of iPad apps that I could use to help with my job as a university lecturer in mathematics. I asked specifically about annotating PDF files I had made using LaTeX and recording such activity. More generally, I asked what other apps might be useful to my job and for other uses I should be thinking about. People made suggestions via comments on that post, Twitter and Google+. Thanks to all who responded. Here is a summary of the recommendations I received.
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Open Season: Prime Numbers (Part 1)
In this short series of articles, I’m writing about mathematical questions we don’t know the answer to – which haven’t yet been proven or disproven. This is the third article in the series, and across two parts will discuss various open conjectures relating to prime numbers.
I don’t think it’s too much of an overstatement to say that prime numbers are the building blocks of numbers. They’re the atoms of maths. They are the beginning of all number theory. I’ll stop there, before I turn into Marcus Du Sautoy, but I do think they’re pretty cool numbers. They crop up in a lot of places in maths, they’re used for all kinds of cool spy-type things including RSA encryption, and even cicadas have got in on the act (depending on who you believe).
muoto by Traction and Brainstorm
[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQtJMOAsjdA]
iPad apps for university mathematics teaching: your suggestions please
New game, everyone! Work have bought me an iPad. I have so far discovered this is basically a touch screen interface through which I can write email, read Twitter and play pinball, but I’ve heard a rumour that it can do even more than that. I’d like you to suggest what else I might do with it.
Manchester MathsJam recap, August 2013
This month we had a few new faces, and plenty of regulars. We also had someone’s first MathsJam, and someone’s last (in the UK): Manchester regular Nicolette brought along her 6-week old baby Julia, who experienced her first recreational maths night in a pub, and by this time next month Nicolette will be back in her native New Zealand (obviously, setting up a new MathsJam there).
Julia Robinson and Hilbert’s Tenth Problem, by George Csicsery
Over on Google+, David Roberts just posted this trailer (via Антид Ото) to a lovely documentary about Julia Robinson and her contributions towards answering Hilbert’s tenth problem.
[youtube url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4x9XKNAYjU]
David Hilbert’s tenth problem was to find an algorithm to solve diophantine equations, that is, to find roots of polynomials with integer coefficients. We now know that the problem is unsolvable in general, and Julia Robinson did a lot of the work to get there; she wrote that she “couldn’t bear to die without knowing the answer.”
David asked if anyone knows of any present-day female mathematicians of similar standing to Julia Robinson. Apart from President of the IMU Ingrid Daubechies and people who are active on Twitter my knowledge of top mathmos is quite poor, so I thought I’d open the question up to The Aperiodical’s readers.
The full DVD of Julia Robinson and Hilbert’s Tenth Problem is available from George Csicsery’s ZALA Films site, and it looks like there are a few copies on Amazon as well.
Explaining things
I have discovered, or perhaps learned how to articulate, something fundamental: I like explaining things. Allow me to explain.