A long-standing mathematical problem has had a recent breakthrough – scientist Aubrey de Grey has proved that the chromatic number of the plane is at least 5.
Review – A Mind At Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age, by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman
For a while now I’ve been fascinated by the story of Claude Shannon, the pioneer of information theory and the originator of many fundamental concepts now used in all modern manipulation and transmission of data. Being sent a copy of this biography to review was a great chance to find out more about his work…
Carnival of Mathematics 156
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of March, and compiled by Robin, is now online at Theorem of the Day. The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
πkm run challenge – completed
As a final update, I’ve now finished my πkm running quest. I’m very tired now! Thanks to everyone who has donated at pikm.run, spread the word about it, come running with me or otherwise facilitated this. Here’s the final set of photos and video clips from the last week, and for the data fiends among…
Wikiquote edit-a-thon – Saturday, May 12th, 2018
TL;DR: We’re holding a distributed Wikipedia edit-a-thon on Saturday, May 12th, 2018 from 10am to improve the visibility of women mathematicians on the Wikiquotes Mathematics page. Join in from wherever you are! Details below, and in this Google Doc. Extension and abstraction without apparent direction or purpose is fundamental to the discipline. Applicability is not…
πkm running challenge: 21-day round up
I’m still going! Two-thirds of the way through my epic running binge, and I’ve managed to keep it up every day so far. Since my last round-up on 7th, I’ve run another πkm each day, and my fundraising total is now at 22%, which is over £700 (and if you didn’t notice, that sentence just…
Hannah Fry’s ‘Contagion’ programme broadcast tonight
You may remember back in September we posted about a mass-participation science experiment, aiming to model the spread of diseases in human populations using a smartphone app. The results of this experiment, presented by the contagiously loveable Hannah Fry, will be presented in a documentary this evening on BBC4. You can also see Hannah chatting about the experiment on this evening’s The One Show.
Contagion! The BBC4 Pandemic, on the BBC watch-o-tron