Here’s a round-up of a few newsy things we didn’t cover on the site in the month of December.
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- Kenneth Falconer, Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews, appointed CBE for services to mathematics.
- Roger Heath-Brown, Emeritus Fellow, University of Oxford, appointed OBE for services to mathematics and mathematical research.
- Colva Roney-Dougal, Professor of Mathematics, University of St Andrews, appointed OBE for services to education and mathematics.
- Chris Smith, teacher of mathematics at Grange Academy, Kilmarnock, appointed MBE for services to mathematics education and to the community in East Ayrshire.
- Steven Underwood, lately mathematics teacher at Ryedale School, Beadlam, North Yorkshire, appointed MBE for services to Education
- Laura Dawson (Laura Gilbert), Director of Data Science in the Prime Minister’s Office, appointed CBE for services to technology and analysis.
- Thomas Critchley, Data Scientist, Prime Minister’s Office, appointed OBE for services to evidence-based policy.
- Tori Olphin, Chief Data Scientist and Head of Research, Thames Valley Police, appointed MBE for services to technology in the public sector.
Particularly mathematical New Years Honours 2024
The UK Government have announced the latest list of honours, and we’ve taken a look for the particularly mathematical entries. Here is the selection for this year – if you spot any more, let us know in the comments and we’ll add to the list.
Get the full list from gov.uk.
As well as the New Year Honours, another list has been published – Liz Truss’s Resignation Honours. This list includes a damehood for Shirley Conran for services to mathematics education as founder of the Maths Anxiety Trust.
\(-e^{i\pi}\) to Watch: Howie Hua
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical video and streaming channels from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the channel and asking them about what they do.
We spoke to Howie Hua, who runs a TikTok channel sharing short videos to help people understand mathematics.
Podcasting about: The Function Room
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical podcasts from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the podcast and asking them about what they do.
We spoke to Colm O’Regan, author, comedian and broadcaster, whose podcast The Function Room invites mathematicians on to tell him something interesting.
\(-e^{i\pi}\) to Watch: SparksMaths
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical video and streaming channels from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the channel and asking them about what they do.
We spoke to Ben Sparks, the author of the SparksMaths YouTube channel, who shares recordings of live Geogebra builds illustrating various maths concepts.
Aperiodical News Roundup – November 2023
Here’s a selection of mathematical news from the month of November that we didn’t otherwise mention on the site.
Proof News
The dream team of Tim Gowers, Ben Green, Freddie Manners and Terence Tao (pictured above) claim to have solved the polynomial Freiman-Ruzsa conjecture (originally conjectured by Hungarian mathematician Katalin Marton), which is described by Gil Kalai in this blog post as ‘the holy grail of additive combinatorics’. (via Terence Tao)
It’s claimed that the board game Othello has been solved: according to this arXiv paper, perfect play leads to a draw. (via Stephen Brooks)
Maths/politics
The UK Government has pledged “support to establish a National Academy focussed on mathematical sciences”. There has been a project to set up such an Academy as a recommendation from the Bond Review ‘The era of mathematics‘ in 2018, and it’s currently in a proto-setup phase.
Algorithmic trading firm XTX Markets has launched a $10m fund “designed to spur the creation of a publicly-shared AI model capable of winning a gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad”.
And finally
Ben Orlin has released a few interactive online versions of games from his book “Math Games With Bad Drawings”.
\(-e^{i\pi}\) to Watch: Sum and Product
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical video and streaming channels from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the channel and asking them about what they do.
We spoke to Bernhard Werner, who’s recently started a YouTube channel called Sum and Product to share mathematical visualisations and explanations.