This is a guest post by Chris Taylor. I recently read “The Warlock Effect” by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman (read it – it’s good). It’s a work of fiction about a stage magician who uses his skills to combat a threat to UK national security – not somewhere you expect to find to find…
Humans Have Now Said Over 80,000 Digits of the New Mersenne Prime
Can humans say their largest prime number before they find the next one? After the discovery of the new Mersenne Prime, a community project aims to find out!
Double Maths First Thing: Issue 15
Double Maths First Thing is powered by genuine, artisanal intelligence Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread joy and delight in maths, and to encourage people to take pride in the maths they do. Straight into it this week! Links! Let’s start with a callback to Issue…
Double Maths First Thing: Issue 14
DMFT probably needs wider margins. Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread the joy and delight in how everything fits together. Straight into the links this week! A mini-theme: going back in time My link collection has a lot of retro content this week, so let’s get…
Double Maths First Thing: Issue 13
DMFT is significantly less perplexing than HMRC Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread mathematical joy. This week, I’ve made another contribution to the OEIS (currently in review) about the excellent puzzle #23 from Scroggsvent that Matt has written up here. I’ve also written a blog post I’m unusually…
Aperiodical News Roundup – November & December 2024
Here’s a round-up of some news stories from the last two months of 2024, (mostly) not otherwise covered here on the Aperiodical. Maths Research At the start of December, John Carlos Baez shared on Mathstodon that the moving sofa problem may have been solved – the question of the largest possible shape you can fit…
Double Maths First Thing, Issue 12
Double Maths First Thing is being written in the dark Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread mathematical joy and delight. However, at de moment, delights aren’t working; we’re in a power cut and I’m hoping my various batteries will hold out long enough to get DMFT…