Here’s a round-up of a few news stories we’ve not had chance to write about this month.
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Applications are open for the 6th Heidelberg Laureate Forum
You may have noticed Aperiodical team members Paul and I were blogging from the Heidelberg Laureate Forum back in September. The HLF is an opportunity for young researchers (PhD, MSc and post-doc) to meet the winners of prestigious prizes in maths and computer science, including the Abel Prize, Fields Medal, ACM AM Turing Prize and Nevanlinna prize.
The next HLF will take place in September 2018, and applications open today for Young Researchers who want to participate. If you’re a maths or computer science researcher and want to be invited on a trip to Germany with lots of interesting talks, delicious food and good company, you can apply on the HLF website from today.
New maths board game Mind Your Numbers
You may recall a few years ago we posted about a crowdfunded mathematical board game called Three Sticks. Well, the team behind it are at it again and have a new concept for a game, called Mind Your Numbers.The game involves using the numbers 1 to 9, and twelve symbols (three each of +,×,-,÷). The challenge is to combine the symbols and numbers in the right way to get a higher score than your opponent. It requires fast calculation, strategic thinking and a bit of luck.
Their IndieGoGo campaign hopes to raise enough money to go into production, and they have 7 days left to take pre-orders and donations in return for goodies. It’s also possible to make a donation which results in not you, but a worthy school in rural India, getting a copy of the game.
Watch the video below for an idea of how it works!
Braid groups win 2017 Dance Your PhD contest
If you hadn’t heard of Dance Your PhD, it’s one of many competitions open to researchers who want to communicate their work in interesting ways – although it’s unique in that it challenges people to interpret their research topic in the form of a dance.
Black Mathematician Month: Closing Ceremony
Below is an article marking the end of Black Mathematician Month, written by the team at UCL. We’ve been participating in the project too, and we’ve found it a great opportunity to invite new authors to write for our site and to showcase black mathematicians from the UK and elsewhere. We’ve posted several articles during the month, and hope to continue to feature more diverse authors on the site going forward, with a few more posts anticipated soon.
To mark the end of the month, Dr Nira Chamberlain gave a lecture yesterday at UCL, and if you missed it, the event live-stream will be posted on the Chalkdust social media: Facebook / Twitter
Vi Hart is crowdfunding
If you appreciate the work of internet mathematician and hyperbolic virtual reality pioneer Vi Hart, or even if you’ve never heard of her before, you can now help support her work by subscribing to her Patreon. Vi Hart has never put any adverts on her videos or charged for her work until now, but since she’s stopped being employed by people who support that, she’s in need of your help. Check out the video below for details, or click the link below that to add your support.
Ditching the fifth axiom (video)
Watch geometer/topologist Caleb Ashley explain the parallel postulate on Numberphile.