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…
There’s going to be a film about Ramanujan
The Man Who Knew Infinity was a well-received biography of Srinivasa Ramanujan. Now it’s being made into a film: happy hooray! It’ll star Jeremy Irons as Hardy and Dev Patel as Ramanujan. That’s all the news about that, for now. More information Jeremy Irons to Co-star in ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’ at Variety. Irons stars in maths…
NT matters (Wrapping up algebraic numbers)
Aperiodipal Nathan Barker sent me this video by Durham University’s Herbert Gangl, inspired by his number theory course last year. [youtube url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTFCPnxe9Jc] I’ll never be able to think about algebraic numbers again without hearing this. Thanks, Herbert! No thanks, Nathan!
Nominations for LMS 2014 prizes open
Another year, another round of LMS prizes. Nominations for the 2014 prizes are now open. Quoth the LMS: In 2014, the LMS Council expects to award: The Pólya Prize – awarded in recognition of outstanding creativity in, imaginative exposition of, or distinguished contribution to, mathematics within the United Kingdom. The Fröhlich Prize – awarded for original and extremely innovative work in…
Puzzlebomb – December 2013
Puzzlebomb is a monthly puzzle compendium. Issue 24 of Puzzlebomb, for December 2013, can be found here: Puzzlebomb – Issue 24 – December 2013 The solutions to Issue 24 can be found here: Puzzlebomb – Issue 24 – December 2013 – Solutions Previous issues of Puzzlebomb, and their solutions, can be found here.