With the announcement of honours for 1,195 people in the 2014 New Years list, it’s time for the latest in our ongoing Honours-watch series of posts. In this, we search arbitrarily for ‘mathematics’ in the PDFs of the various lists, and hope our well-informed readers fill in the blanks where actual knowledge is required.
Toast Formula Update!
A press release from the Royal Society of Chemistry: Formula for the perfect cheese on toast revealed. Oh dear.
Newcastle MathsJam second half of 2013 recap
Well! I have been quite remiss in writing up the Newcastle MathsJams. The last recap published was for May’s meeting. The end of the year (and associated holiday) is a good time to kick myself up the backside and do the entire second half of the year in one go. So, here’s that.
Alan Turing receives Royal Pardon
It was announced this morning that mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing has been posthumously granted a pardon for his conviction in 1952 for gross indecency. The pardon is issued under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy by the Queen, after intervention from justice secretary Chris Grayling. The conviction was at the time standard for persons found to be practising…
Maths and Magic on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 put out a rather nice 30-minute documentary on the links between maths and magic recently. In Maths and Magic, Jolyon Jenkins explains a couple of simple algebraic ‘mind-reading’ tricks, before talking to various magicians and mathematicians in search of a mathematical trick that doesn’t ‘look’ mathematical. Regular readers of this site will recognise…
Turismo Matemático is five years old
Happy birthday to Turismo Matemático, a happy little blog which has been posting pictures of mathematical objects around the world for five years now. It’s one of my favourite maths blogs; if you weren’t already aware of it, now’s as good a time as any to go and have a look.
Persi Diaconis lecture: “The Magic of Martin Gardner”
The one and only Persi Diaconis is going to give a lecture on Martin Gardner at Queen Mary University of London next April. Exciting! As part of the 2014 British Mathematical Colloquium, join Professor Persi Diaconis, mathematician and former professional magician to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Martin Gardner, with a lecture on…