A chap called Dixon Crews has posted to reddit’s maths section asking for help with a writing project.
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Videos from MathsJam 2012
While we were at the big MathsJam conference a few weekends ago, we took the opportunity to point a camera in people’s faces and ask them to tell us something interesting. Because of the high quality of MathsJam attendees, this went better than it would in most other contexts.
Here’s a collection of clips we recorded while people were digesting both their dinners and the first day’s talks.
[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg_IeC1M5D4]
Conjoined Möbius Hat pattern by Woolly Thoughts
Pat Ashforth has written in to say that she’s released a new free knitting pattern for a Klein bottle hat with a – wait for it – twist!
Registration for the Alan Turing Cryptography Competition 2013 is open
Following on from the huge success that was their inaugural competition earlier this year, mathematicians from the University of Manchester have put together another Cryptography Competition in honour of father of modern everything, Alan Turing.
This time, the competition is open to teams of school children from all over the UK, and comprises a six-chapter story featuring Alice and Bob Mike and Ellie, who get “caught up in a cryptographic adventure”. Solving all the puzzles and cracking the codes faster than other people gets you on the leader board, and there are prizes for being near the top as well as extra prizes for randomly-selected teams who’ve solved everything. (You know that since it’s a maths department, their randomisation algorithms will be top-notch). It’s also possible to enter as a non-schoolchild, and check your answers on the site, although you won’t be eligible for prizes. The competition is aimed at UK school years 7-11 (age 11-16), although I can confirm it’s dead good fun for anyone interested in cryptography puzzles themed around exciting storylines.
More information
Alan Turing Cryptography Competition 2013
Manchester University press release
Via Nick Higham on Twitter.
A mathematical monologue
Described as an ‘off-Broadway hit’, the show has toured the US playing in universities and theatres, and is set in the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley. The show’s site features a trailer as well as a link to buy the DVD.
Peter Rowlett interviewed on mathblogging.org
Having featured interviews with two of our three editors in the past (see: Christian P here and Katie here), the lovely people at mathblogging.org have now completed the set and this week feature an interview with “the Bill Bryson of mathematics” (source: overheard at the Maths Jam conference), our own Peter Rowlett.
Why and when did Peter start blogging? Does anything still exist in maths he hasn’t yet blogged about? Find out in ‘Mathematical Instruments: Travels in a Mathematical World‘.
Recreational Maths Seminar – Seven Staggering Sequences
Yesterday I hosted another recreational maths seminar on Google+. I had a lot of fun! We discussed the paper, Seven Staggering Sequences (PDF), by Neil Sloane. In the paper Sloane, the man behind the fantastic Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, described seven of the sequences he found most especially interesting.
The Hangout was just under an hour and a half long, and we managed to get through five of the seven sequences. Some of them are really hard to understand!
[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBvyaku9Omw]