One of the many jobs we’re gradually getting round to in our new flat is that of tiling a small section of the kitchen surface, which for some reason was left blank by the original builders and all intervening owners. And what better thing to tile it with than binary numbers?
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Review: Snowflake Seashell Star, by Alex Bellos & Edmund Harriss
Snowflake Seashell Star is a new mathematical colouring book, by Alex Bellos and Edmund Harriss, aimed at the lucrative ‘grown-up colouring books’ market that’s sprung up recently, heavily intersected with people who are interested in maths – the book can be used as a regular colouring book, but contains lots of interesting mathematical things, and mathematicians will love it. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from maths adventurer Bellos and mathematical artist and tiling fan Harriss, whose personalities both come through in the book – from the beautiful illustration to the playful style (and there’s a sneaky Harriss Spiral in there too).
The first thing I did in order to properly review the book was check an important mathematical fact, in case anyone was worried. And yes, everything in it is colourable using four colours or fewer. Phew.
Not mentioned on The Aperiodical this week, 18th September 2015
Gender inclusivity in mathematics at Harvard
Some mathematicians at Harvard have formed an organisation called “Gender inclusivity in mathematics”, which is dedicated to “creating a community of mathematicians particularly welcoming to women interested in math and reducing the gender gap in Harvard’s math department.”
They’re running a series of talks by invited speakers and discussion events, and hope to run a conference on women in mathematics this academic year.
More information: Gender inclusivity in mathematics at Harvard
via Nalini Joshi on Twitter
National Numeracy Family Maths Toolkit
The National Numeracy campaign, a British charity aiming to improve numeracy in adults as well as children, has relaunched its Parent Toolkit as the Family Maths Toolkit. It contains advice for parents on promoting good attitudes towards maths, as well as ideas for activities to get the whole family enthused and practised in maths. There’s also a section with information to help school teachers support parental engagement with maths.
Visit: Family Maths Toolkit
Pixar in a Box
Khan Academy has partnered with Pixar to produce a subsection of their site which explains some of the maths involved in computer animation. There are the usual videos explaining individual topics, but also plenty of interactive diagrams so you can play along at home. It’s also nice to see some “Get to know …” videos, which present real animators who work at Pixar, talking about why they got into computer animation.
Visit: Pixar in a Box, at Khan Academy
Terence Tao has solved the Erdős discrepancy problem!
Terence Tao has just uploaded a preprint to the arXiv with a claimed proof of the Erdős discrepancy problem.
Breakthrough Junior Challenge prize for the best 10-minute explanation of a maths topic
The organisation behind the Breakthrough Prize has announced a competition aimed at school-age kids, called the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, which encourages them to get excited about maths and science, and to make a 10-minute video explaining a challenging concept – which can be an existing bit of research, or something they’ve done themselves.
New issue of MSOR Connections, I’m an editor
I am now one of the editors of MSOR Connections, a peer-reviewed practitioner journal that welcomes research articles, case studies and opinion pieces relating to innovative learning, teaching, assessment and support in mathematics, statistics and operational research in higher education.
Timothy Gowers has launched a new arXiv overlay journal
Sir Timothy Gowers has announced on his blog a new journal, Discrete Analysis, of which he will be the managing editor. Rather than a traditional journal, this will be an open-access ‘arXiv overlay’.