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Rubik’s Tube

By Katie Steckles. Posted September 13, 2012

Numberphile filmmaker and general internet legend Brady Haran has been busy putting together a series of YouTube videos about the Rubik’s cube, with contributions from Aperiodical friends Matt Parker and James Grime. The videos also feature lots of solving clips sent in by viewers, and Aperiodical Editor triumvir and sometime maths-talker-abouter Katie Steckles (that’s me) occasionally pops in to make comments and state facts which are no longer true (a world record was broken 4 days after filming).

Science Lives profile of Robert MacPherson

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted September 13, 2012

Just quickly, here’s something I saw on MetaFilter and enjoyed. The Simons Foundation has a “Science Lives” series of “extended interviews with some of the giants of twentieth century mathematics and science”.

This one is with Robert MacPherson, who invented instersection homology with Mark Goresky. I’d never heard of him and topology gives me the heebie-jeebs, but I’ve spent a very happy morning reading the fascinating biography and listening to the interview. The interviewer is Robert L. Bryant, also a research mathematician, so the questions don’t stray away from difficult topics. MacPherson comes across as an all-round excellent guy; I really recommend playing through all the clips when you have some time.

ACMEScience NEWS NOW ep 2: Sally Dodson-Robinson

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted September 12, 2012

Samuel Hansen is a busy man. As well as finishing off Relatively Prime, he’s continually making up new ideas for podcasts. His latest effort is ACMEScience NEWS NOW ((yes, the title has more capitals than a particularly pillarific Medieval cathedral, but that seems to be the way Sam is doing things)), a series of video interviews with the people behind scientific and mathematical research stories in the news.

We didn’t post about episode 1, with Paul Hines talking about crowdsourcing, due to it coming out in that weird bit of the Summer where all three of us fell asleep for a few weeks. But last night Sam posted episode 2 — an interview with Sally Dodson-Robinson about modelling planet formation — so here it is:

[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_DT6jK8bj0]

You can subscribe to the ACMEScience NEWS NOW channel on its YouTube page.

It’s Imminently Time For Relatively Prime

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted September 11, 2012

Long-standing chum of The Aperiodical, Samuel Hansen, has been spending the past year travelling round the world recording interviews and collecting audio for an ambitious series of programs about maths called Relatively Prime: Stories from the mathematical domain. The first episode will be released next Monday.

Sam’s written a nice long press release explaining what the show’s about so, rather than use my own stupid words, I’ll let him tell you all about it:

Number Gossip is back!

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted September 11, 2012

Just over a month ago I posted that Number Gossip had been killed. Well,

It looks like Number Gossip is back, as gossipy and numerate as ever. Tanya hasn’t announced anything on her blog yet, so I thought a quick public-service note was in order.

Math/Maths 111: A Domino Computer on a Penrose Tiling

By Peter Rowlett. Posted September 9, 2012

A new episode of the Math/Maths Podcast has been released.

A conversation about mathematics between the UK and USA from Pulse-Project.org. This week Samuel and Peter spoke about: Making Heisenberg more Certain; Matt Parker’s domino computer challenge; Turing Machine on a Penrose tiling automata; Bletchley Park Bombe hut restoration; Turing Monopoly; Measuring Women’s Progress in Mathematics; Mochizuki on ABC; Google Earth Fractals; and more.

Get this episode: Math/Maths 111: A Domino Computer on a Penrose Tiling

Aperiodcast – 09/09/2012

By Christian Lawson-Perfect and Peter Rowlett. Posted September 9, 2012

Leaves are falling, a chilly wind is blowing and I can hear the distant thunder of undergrads’ hooves as they stampede towards my department. Yes, Summer is giving way to Autumn, so it’s time for another Aperiodcast. If you had “42 days” in the “when will the next Aperiodcast appear” sweepstake, report to the comments section below for your prize.

In this episode Peter and Christian were enjoying the comforts of their respective homes, while Katie was preparing to be sawn in half by a crazed Matt Parker at the British Science Festival. We talked about:

As always, we’re keen to hear about your mathematical exploits at root@aperiodical.com, and you still have eight days to submit items for the 90th Carnival of Mathematics, which you can do through our form.

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