A collaboration between mathematicians and biologists has discovered “why platelets, the cells that form blood clots, are the size and shape that they are”, a better understanding of which “could have wide implications [for] healing wounds and in strokes and other conditions”.
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New strategy for winning the iterated prisoner’s dilemma
A new strategy for the iterated prisoner’s dilemma allows, over the very long run, one player to unilaterally claim an unfair share of the rewards.
Math/Maths 99: Beer, Flying Carpets and Sarcastic AI
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: The Guinness Sinking Bubble Problem; Egocentric Social Network Structure; Computers understanding language in context; Researchers Build Miniature Flying Carpet; Campaign to disregard Turing’s conviction; The Turing Enigma (a film); Turing papers free access; Loebner on the Loebner Prize; Anatolii Fomenko’s Mathematical Impressions; What happened with Atiyah and Villani at Tate Modern?; Math predicts size of clot-forming cells; Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma contains strategies that dominate any evolutionary opponent; EPSRC very quietly relents on maths funding; and more.
Get this episode: Math/Maths 99: Beer, Flying Carpets and Sarcastic AI
Loebner tires of Loebner Prize, discusses future of thinking machines
TechRepublic have published an interview with Hugh Loebner, originator of the Loebner Prize competition, in which he discusses the prize and the future of thinking machines.
Campaign to disregard Turing’s conviction
A report on the MK [Milton Keynes] NEWS website offers support for the campaign of Iain Stewart MP “in his efforts to have Alan Turing’s conviction for homosexuality quashed”.
In a piece for Travels in a Mathematical World I wrote about the Turing pardon and the prospect of a new piece of legislation which, according to John Graham-Cumming, “specifically allows for the disregarding of convictions under the old law that was used against Turing”. The new development in the MK News piece refers to this legislation:
The recently-passed Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 allows a person who has been convicted or received a caution for an offence under sections 12 or 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 to apply to have this ‘disregarded’.
These are the same offences for which Turing was convicted and Mr Stewart wants this disregard to be applied posthumously.
So the focus seems to have moved from a pardon, which the Government refused to do, to having the conviction posthumously disregarded under chapter four of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (which, if I’m reading it correctly, seems to allow for the person convicted to apply themselves to have their conviction disregarded).
Source: Add your voice to clear a war hero.
Marcus du Sautoy interview; Marcus supports the Telegraph’s numeracy campaign
Marcus du Sautoy has lent his weight to The Telegraph’s numeracy campaign, Make Britain Count. In an interview covering maths and music, patterns and abstraction and a little about his and his children’s mathematics education, he also talks about how maths teaching in schools could be improved, stating that
in this country there’s an honour in saying you’re bad at maths, whereas in places such as India and China, mathematics is valued by the community. Parents there know that if their kids understand this language, they will be empowered. Sadly, this message hasn’t got across in many European countries yet… It’s got to be something that the whole society takes responsibility for and that is why I’m supporting the Telegraph’s Make Britain Count campaign. We’re not brave enough in our maths education these days. Kids get so bored at school from 11 to 14. They’re not exposed to the really interesting stuff.
Source: Make Britain Count: Marcus du Sautoy joins our campaign.
Tony Mann on Atiyah and Villani at Tate Modern
Tony Mann attended the Atiyah/Villani(/Stewart) event at Tate Modern yesterday and wrote a review of this for his blog. He discusses several interesting ideas from the discussions – “a few that resonated with me” – including on problem solving, history and the practice of doing mathematics in relation to art, barriers and the place of blackboards.
Tony notes that the event was being recorded so we might look forward to a recording that can be viewed later.
Read Tony’s review: Atiyah and Villani at Tate Modern – the value of blackboards.