I was invited to give a talk for Ustinov College’s Café Scientifique on π Day this year. The turnout wasn’t great and I put quite a bit of effort into the slides, so I wanted to put it online. I’ve finally got hold of the recording, so here it is. Unfortunately they didn’t set the camera’s…
Maths at the Manchester Science Festival 2016
Here’s our annual round-up of what’s happening in sums/thinking at this year’s Manchester Science Festival. If you’re local, or will be in the area around 20th-30th October, here’s our picks of the finest number-based shows, talks and events.
Puzzlebomb – October 2016
Puzzlebomb is a monthly puzzle compendium. Issue 58 of Puzzlebomb, for October 2016, can be found here: Puzzlebomb – Issue 58 – October 2016 (printer-friendly version) The solutions to Issue 58 can be found here: Puzzlebomb – Solutions 58 – October 2016 (printer-friendly version) Previous issues of Puzzlebomb, and their solutions, can be found here.
Best way to explain topology: now officially ‘using baked goods’
Nobel Prize news! The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to a trio of physicists: Michael Kosterlitz, Duncan Haldane and David Thouless, “for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”. And here’s the maths angle – their work is in the field of topological physics, which relates strange matter (superconductors, superfluids…
The world’s smallest Rubik’s cube is 5.6mm wide and absolutely adorable
I just found this video of a very focused man showing off a teeny tiny Rubik’s cube. It’s 5.6mm on each side, which apparently makes it the smallest in the world, beating some relatively gigantesque efforts of 6mm and larger. Watch this video; I’ll warn you now that the squee factor gives way to some…
Happy 100th birthday, Richard K Guy!
We’d all like to wish a very happy birthday to the wonderful Richard K Guy, who turns 100 today. Happily, Guy remains not dead in either the corporeal or Erdős sense: he’s both fit as a fiddle (he climbed a tower for charity aged 97), and active in the mathematical community.
New Twin Primes found
Collaborative prime number searching website PrimeGrid has announced its most recent discovery: on 14th September, user Tom Greer discovered a new pair of twin primes (primes which differ by 2), namely: \[2996863034895 \times 2^{1290000} \pm 1\] Found using PrimeGrid’s Sophie Germain Prime search, the new discoveries are 388,342 digits long, smashing the previous twin prime…