Here’s a happy little film starring two Yoshimoto cubes, by Justin Lanier and Paul Salomon of Math Munch. Enjoy!
[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZi5FhAwFgI]
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- An article by Nikhil Srivastava (spelt correctly this time), a coauthor of the proof, explaining the relationship between the conjecture and discrepancy theory.
- A piece from Notices of the AMS written by Christopher Heil, which relates the conjecture to Frame Theory.
- A relatively accessible article by Bryan Roberts on the physics which originally inspired the question (as physics has a tendency to do).
Hyperbolic Hyperbolic Hyperbolic: Daina Taimina at the DUMBO Arts Festival 2013
Fans of hyperbolic crochet, and hyperbole, will be pleased to hear that Daina Taimina’s exhibit ‘Hyperbolic Hyperbolic Hyperbolic‘ is being shown at the DUMBO Arts Festival in New York, on 28 & 29 September. The show features examples of hyperbolic crochet, and invites visitors to experiment with their own hyperbolic crochet and paper creations.
More info (and an extensive selection of sexy hyperbolic crochet photos):
Hyperbolic Hyperbolic Hyperbolic, on the DUMBO Arts Festival website
Ian Stewart on The Life Scientific
Acknowledging the long-hidden truth that mathematicians are also scientists, Jim al-Khalili interviewed Ian Stewart yesterday for his Radio 4 programme, The Life Scientific. The show features a different scientist in each episode, and Professor al-Khalili talks to them about their life and work, what inspires and motivates them, and how their research may benefit mankind.
Professor Ian Stewart (not to be confused with geologist Professor Iain Stewart) is a professor at Warwick University, and is involved with a lot of maths outreach, including having written numerous popular maths books; he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1997. His research interests are in dynamical systems, bifurcations, pattern theory and biomathematics. He also writes science fiction books, and has collaborated on the Science of Discworld books, based on Terry Pratchett’s series.
Links
Listen again to the episode of The Life Scientific, originally broadcast 17/9/13 – available up to a week afterwards.
Podcast – available indefinitely.
Euclid’s Kiss: Geometric Sculpture of George Hart
George Hart is putting on a one-man show of his sculptures at Stony Brook University. He’s posted this video of him walking through the exhibition and describing the pieces on display.
[youtube url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI1612YhMqg]
George also gave a lecture to open the exhibition, which you can watch on the SCGP website.
Euclid’s Kiss: Geometric Sculpture of George Hart is on display at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics during September and October.
More information: Euclid’s Kiss: Geometric Sculpture of George Hart
GeoGebra now available for tablets
You may be aware of GeoGebra. In a previous post, our very own CP described it as “a surprisingly capable piece of free dynamic maths software, used widely by teachers and geometry aficionados”. I am preparing lecture notes for the new academic year and have been making diagrams in GeoGebra (on Ubuntu, since you asked), both to print in my notes and animate in my lectures. I can insert $\LaTeX$ labels and export as code for PGF or PSTricks. Here’s one:
Now, following a successful Kickstarter (which we covered in a previous post), GeoGebra have released tablet versions of the software. So GeoGebra is now available on Windows, OS X and various flavours of Linux (.deb, .rpm, other), as a Chrome App, a Chrome Web Application and in a ‘Java Webstart‘ version (though be aware that the Java Webstart is being phased out), and now for Windows 8 or RT, Android and iPad tablets. Here is a screenshot of the iPad app:
Download and more information at the GeoGebra website.
Via MEI on Twitter and Michael Borcherds on our previous post.
The Kadison-Singer Conjecture explained
You may have noticed our recent announcement of the proof of the Kadison-Singer conjecture, in which we weren’t able to go into that much detail about what the conjecture actually entails. Well, having been contacted by one of the authors of that paper, Adam Marcus, who emailed to congratulate us on the complete absence of any typos in our coverage, and in particular the correctness of the spelling of all the proper nouns, we’re now able to give a little more detail. Quoth Adam:
To be honest, I don’t think I could do a better job at explaining the conjecture than some people have already done, so I would rather point you at their expositions. The physics one is especially easy to follow, and is accessible with freshman-year physics. The other two are also quite good, but require a bit more math.
Adam Marcus was an Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics at Yale and is now the co-founder of a tech startup. Nikhil Srivastava is at Microsoft Research. Daniel A. Spielman is a Professor of Computer Science, Mathematics, and Applied Mathematics at Yale.
Toast formula
ACHTUNG: This post contains no information which could progress humanity’s understanding of the universe it inhabits. It contains links to several terrible newspapers. I have not fixed any of the issues in the source material, typographical, mathematical, grammatical, or otherwise. We are about to plumb the depths of innumeracy and inanity; consider yourself warned.
The Manchester Evening News published a story a few days ago with this unusual headline: “(-Rav)/ t = R: Manchester boffins find formula for why toast lands butter side down”. Maybe the w (or ω) was present in the print version. Anyway, the article hits most of the bad formula reporting points: poorly typeset formula in headline; no explanation of variables; no link to the paper or the researchers; use of the word “boffins”; use of the phrase “infuriated puzzled scientists for more than a century”; formula invented to promote a product.