I just published my second post over at Second-Rate Minds, the mathematical writing blog launched by Samuel Hansen and I back in August. This is a comment/review piece about my reading of G.H. Hardy’s influential 1940 essay A Mathematicians Apology. You may remember we took the name of the blog Second-Rate Minds from a quote from the Apology. As an attempt to be provocative, the piece is entitled: ‘Hardy’s Apology: what’s to dislike?‘
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Sarah
It has been nearly a month since I posted here. Sorry about that. My friend Sarah Shepherd died last month. I expect many people reading this blog will know Sarah for her work on iSquared Magazine or perhaps you’ll have heard Sarah as my guest on the maths news episodes of the Travels in a Mathematical World Podcast.
A fund is open in Sarah’s memory in aid of Rethink. Please consider donating to this.
Twitter ‘worse at counting than hyenas’
On twitter.com a tweet will have listed under it a statement like: “Retweeted by Jim and n others”.
I’ve noticed for a while now that the value of n seems incorrect. Idly, I asked on Twitter if people have noticed this.
@IgorCarron said that “Jim plus n others” means there should be n+1 people in total. This is what I would expect, given my fragile grasp of the English language, but I suspect this is not what is happening. I think n is actually the number of retweeters including Jim, not excluding him as the wording would suggest. Then the correct form should be “Retweeted by Jim and (n-1) others” or “Retweeted by n people including Jim”.
My cynical brain says people would object to and complain about a lower number being displayed so Twitter would put the higher number, but then why not use the “n including” language, which has the virtue of being correct?
@christianp has seen “and others” when only one person has retweeted a message! @AlexHymers reported having seen inconsistencies when only two people have retweeted a message. If the problem is at the n=1 end of the scale only, that is interesting. If this were a poorly coded student project I might suggest the error is in the part of the code that decides whether to pluralise the “other(s)”. (Of course, this is a major international company and not some poorly tested bit of code…)
With an sensible practical mindset, @relinde suggested an experiment: “Ask two people to retweet your message, and see if it says ‘by Jim & 1 other’ or ‘by Jim & 2 others’. I think the first.”
I sent a message (Tweet 1) to @relinde and @christianp asking them to ReTweet (RT) my message. @christianp did so. Impatient, I tweeted out generally for one person to RT the message (Tweet 2) giving a link to Tweet 1. @AlexHymers retweeted Tweet 1. Then @relinde did as well. My impatience had got me three RTs. The result? Tweet 1 was “Retweeted by relinde and 3 others”. The wording suggests four, when only three had retweeted it.
However, at the same time two users, @OnThisDayinMath and @englishblonde had, misunderstanding the instruction, retweeted Tweet 2. This now displayed “Retweeted by englishblonde and 1 other”. The wording here was correct: 2 retweets.
Remembering hyenas and monkeys can count to 3, is it the case that Twitter can count reliably only as far as 2?
One final note: @timtfj says “n in ‘retweeted by A and n others’ seems to vary between meaning n and n-1, but always to be an integer”. Does anyone have a counterexample?
Nottingham Maths Jam on BBC Radio Nottingham
At the August Maths Jam, we in Nottingham were joined by a reporter from BBC Radio Nottingham’s breakfast show, who wanted to know what we were all about. A feature was broadcast last Friday. You can listen to this for a very limited time at: Andy Whittaker, Friday 2nd September. The Maths Jam section starts at 1 hour 56 minutes and lasts for about 3 minutes.
A brisk trade in souvenir mugs
Readers of this blog may be aware that my local maths history comes much in the form of George Green, a local miller and mathematician (indeed it is a George Green mug I am drinking from in the Math/Maths Podcast album art). I noticed the following passage in the introduction to the Proceedings of the 1990 Undergraduate Mathematics Teaching Conference written by Ken Houston:
George Green (1793-1841) who discovered “Green’s Theorem” was a miller in the village of Sneinton (now part of the City of Nottingham). Recently the windmill has been restored to working order and a visitor’s centre has been built beside it. Our conference trip was a visit to Green’s windmill and the mill centre. After our tour of the windmill and the centre there was a brisk trade in souvenir mugs and no doubt many undergraduate students of vector analysis will hear about Green’s mill next session.
Unexpected GCSE Success at Your Local School
There were jubilant scenes yesterday (Thursday) with the long wait finally over for students across Your Town who received their GCSE results. Students at Your Local School are basking in glory after achieving set of eye-catching results.
Boys bucked the national trend, performing better than girls by 5 per cent.
Top performer at Your Local School was teenager Top Pupil (16), who acheived a clean-sweep of A* grades, including Maths and English. She said “It’s hard to describe the feeling really. It’s fantastic.”
Now Top, who hopes to become a vet, will go to Your Local College to study for A Levels. She also plays the clarinet, and has recently been on tour with the Country Youth Orchestra.
At Your Local School, a stunning 92 per cent of students picked up five or more A* to C marks, hot on the heels of last week’s 96 per cent A-level pass rate.
These results are among the best in the country.
Head teacher Robert Teacher, due to retire after today’s results and 18 years in charge, was buoyed by the students’ success, saying: “I’m very pleased. The pressure on them now is far greater than it ever used to be since they are under pressure all the time, but these are the best results we’ve ever had.”
The national A*-C pass rate rose for the 23rd year in a row, figures show.
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Second-Rate Minds
For writing practice, Samuel Hansen and I are collaborating on a new blog, Second-Rate Minds. We take the name from a quote from the beginning of A Mathematician’s Apology by G.H. Hardy (1940):
There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
We plan to alternately write short pieces on and around mathematics and edit each others writing. I wrote the first post, “Moving on a strange diagonal“, a write-up of my 2010 Maths Jam Conference talk about a puzzle and my thoughts on its use in education. Expect future posts at roughly two a month. If you want to keep up with future posts there is an RSS feed and a Twitter account.