A few months ago a group of us launched a membership club, The Finite Group, which you can join!
A big update is the lineup — your membership now supports the work of and gives you access to content from mathematician and TikTok star Ayliean MacDonald, as well as Chalkdust’s Matthew Scroggs and The Aperiodical’s Katie Steckles and me. Membership gives you access to a chat community and monthly livestreams. For a taste of the livestreams, check out this π minute video!
The big news is that the next livestream will be free to view live online on 27th March from 5-6pm GMT. All four of us will be working through the recent ‘100 Mathematical Conventions Questions’ quiz that’s been dividing (a small subset of) the internet. The stream will be available live, and a recording will be available to members afterwards.
Stephen Wolfram has announced version 14 of Mathematica, which will be available immediately both on the desktop and in the cloud. The latest version has 6602 built-in functions, and is accompanied by significant documentation and online tutorials to help people learn how to use it.
A new mathematical modelling competition, open from 1st Feb, invites predictions for when cherry trees will blossom in five cities in the USA and Japan, with cash and prizes awarded for a compelling narrative and reproducible analysis containing any data and code used. (via IMAmaths on X)
Science is reporting that a group of mathematicians are producing “low-quality papers” that repeatedly reference their work, distorting citation metrics apparently in an attempt to raise their institution’s rankings. As a result of this practice,
publishing analytics company Clarivate has excluded the entire field of math from the most recent edition of its influential list of authors of highly cited papers, released in November 2023.
Claire Voisin has been awarded the Crafoord Prize in Mathematics by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences — the first woman to win this award in mathematics. (via European Mathematical Society on Mastodon)
The UK Government have announced the latest list of honours, and we’ve taken a look for the particularly mathematical entries. Here is the selection for this year – if you spot any more, let us know in the comments and we’ll add to the list.
Kenneth Falconer, Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews, appointed CBE for services to mathematics.
Roger Heath-Brown, Emeritus Fellow, University of Oxford, appointed OBE for services to mathematics and mathematical research.
Colva Roney-Dougal, Professor of Mathematics, University of St Andrews, appointed OBE for services to education and mathematics.
Chris Smith, teacher of mathematics at Grange Academy, Kilmarnock, appointed MBE for services to mathematics education and to the community in East Ayrshire.
Steven Underwood, lately mathematics teacher at Ryedale School, Beadlam, North Yorkshire, appointed MBE for services to Education
Laura Dawson (Laura Gilbert), Director of Data Science in the Prime Minister’s Office, appointed CBE for services to technology and analysis.
Thomas Critchley, Data Scientist, Prime Minister’s Office, appointed OBE for services to evidence-based policy.
Tori Olphin, Chief Data Scientist and Head of Research, Thames Valley Police, appointed MBE for services to technology in the public sector.
As well as the New Year Honours, another list has been published – Liz Truss’s Resignation Honours. This list includes a damehood for Shirley Conran for services to mathematics education as founder of the Maths Anxiety Trust.
We had over 30 entries in the competition, of which 20 achieved correct answers, and have picked a random set of winners to pass on to Naylor Games, who should be in touch with them by email in the next few days.
For anyone interested in seeing the answers, here’s what they were. As a reminder, the challenge here is to find a value for \(x\), given that \(n\) represents the number of cards, to get the total of all the card values closest to 21.
