Happy birthday to MC Hammer who, at age 52, is now mathematically untouchable.
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- How can I estimate the length of an exam? (top answer: do it yourself, and multiply by 8)
- What is a good handwriting font for mathematics? (more data for Let’s Talk About X, which provoked a lot of discussion here a while ago)
- How to assign homework when answers are freely available or attainable online? (top answer: remember the true meaning of
Christmashomework)
Math Awareness Month 2014
Hey, you! Are you aware of MATH?
Well, of course you’d say yes. But every year the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics runs a Math Awareness Month in April as an excuse to promote a load of great materials and events designed to attract other people to the subject.
Yakov Sinai awarded the 2014 Abel Prize
Yakov Sinai. Photo © Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, CC-BY-SA 2.0
The Abel Prize for 2014 has gone to Yakov Sinai of Princeton University, “for his fundamental contributions to dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and mathematical physics”.
Mathematics Educators Stack Exchange
There’s a new Stack Exchange site for mathematics educators to ask and answer questions to do with the teaching of mathematics.
To give you an idea of what the site’s for, here are a few interesting questions that have already been asked:
The site is quite US-oriented at the moment because of who’s using it, but it doesn’t specifically exclude non-Americans from its remit.
How to solve a Rubik’s Cube in one easy step
Note: If you’re looking for instructions on solving Rubik’s cube from any position, there’s a good page at Think Maths.
One day some years ago I was sat at my desk idly toying with the office Rubik’s cube. Not attempting to solve it, I was just doing the same moves again and again. Particularly I was rotating one face a quarter-turn then rotating the whole cube by an orthogonal quarter-turn like this:
Having started with a solved cube, I knew eventually if I kept doing the same thing the cube would solve itself. But this didn’t seem to be happening – and I’d been doing this for some time by now. This seemed worthy of proper investigation.
LASER TURING
Since we’re the leading authority on Alan Turing news stories, and since it’s clear that anything is improved by the addition of LASERS, we’re proud to report that the Manchester Histories Festival, taking place across Manchester on March 21-28, will include LASER ALAN TURING.
The centrepiece of the festival will be a laser light show at MediaCity in Salford, playing throughout the festival; it will include a ‘thank you’ message to Alan Turing, in morse code, by artist Craig Morrison, and involves two mile laser beams. The Histories Festival says:
The art is a tribute to the impact he continues to have on how we live today in a digitally connected world.
More information
Laser light spectacular to pay tribute to Alan Turing at festival at the Manchester Evening News
Thank you event page
Enormous Sierpiński tetrahedron made of balloons, take 2
Caroline Ainslie has written in to tell us that she and her associates at Pyraloons are having another go at making the world’s largest Sierpiński tetrahedron… from balloons.