The Aperiodical 

You're reading: News

Mathical books for kids award winners announced

By Katie Steckles. Posted April 20, 2015



US organisations the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC) have founded a youth book prize, called Mathical: Books for Kids from Tots to Teens. The prizes, awarded for the first time this year, recognise the most inspiring maths-related fiction and nonfiction books aimed at young people. This year, they’ve awarded a set of prizes for books released in 2014, as well as honouring books published been 2009 and 2014, plus two ‘hall of fame’ winners from the further past.

Not mentioned on the Aperiodical, 3/4/15

By Katie Steckles. Posted April 3, 2015

Here’s a round-up of some mathematical news from last month.

Zeeman Archive

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted March 24, 2015



To celebrate Christopher Zeeman’s 90th birthday and their own 150th, the London Mathematical Society have opened an online archive of Sir Christopher’s work.

Pi Day on Twitter

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted March 14, 2015

We can’t hope to keep up with all the π action around the internet today, so here’s a live stream of #piday tweets.

#piday Tweets


Cédric Villani’s Birth of a Theorem is Radio 4 Book of the Week

By Paul Taylor. Posted March 11, 2015

Birth of a Theorem, the autobiographical book by French mathematician and (spoiler) Fields Medallist Cédric Villani, is Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 this week, read by non-French non-mathematician Julian Rhind-Tutt. Villani also appeared on discussion show Start the Week on Monday, talking about ‘the mathematical mind’ along with mathematician Vicky Neale; Morgan Matthews, director of kid-does-maths film X+Y; and novelist Zia Haider Rahman.

George Boole at 200

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted March 8, 2015

Happy birthday AND many happy returns to George Boole, 200 this year!



The Irish Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, has helped launch University College Cork’s year of festivities celebrating Boole, their first professor of maths and the inventor of Boolean algebra.

The year’s activities will include the restoration of Boole’s first home in Cork, an official film biography, an art exhibition of “contermporary art and mathematical data”, three conferences in maths and computer science, and of course a youth outreach programme. All the relevant information is available at a swishy new site set up for the purpose, georgeboole.com.

I’ve heard the year will end with a celebratory curry – and plenty of NAND bread to go around! Geddit?! (groan – Ed.)

More information

George Boole 200 website

An Taoiseach launches George Boole celebrations – press release from University College Cork

Via Irish Maths Archive on Twitter

The John Riordan prize for the best solution to an unsolved problem in the OEIS

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted March 8, 2015

As mentioned previously, the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences is 50 this year. To celebrate that fact, and to encourage readers to concentrate on filling in the gaps in the missing entries instead of just adding new ones, there’s a \$1,000 prize for the best solution to an open problem posed in an OEIS entry.

The announcement by OEIS creator Neil Sloane seems only to have been published as a PDF, so I’m reproducing it here for everyone’s convenience: