Some grad students at Carnegie Mellon had a fun idea: what if each slide in a presentation was made by a different person, based only on the previous slide? Being grad students and thus having nothing better to be getting on with, they did just that, and nominated one of their number to deliver the…
abc: the story so far
You should take some time to read this very well-written piece about Shin Mochizuki’s claimed proof of the abc conjecture: “The Paradox of the Proof”, by Caroline Chen. It covers the story from all angles: a biog of Mochizuki, a clear, non-nonsense description of the conjecture, the tale of the mathematical community’s attempts to understand it,…
Carnival of Mathematics 98
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of April, is now online at Andrew Taylor’s blog. The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. For more information about the Carnival of Mathematics, click here.
Integer sequence review: A010727
The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences contains over 200,000 sequences. It contains classics, curios, thousands of derivatives entered purely for completeness’s sake, short sequences whose completion would be a huge mathematical achievement, and some entries which are just downright silly. For a lark, David and I have decided to review some of the Encyclopedia’s sequences.…
Ox Blocks probabilities
I have a new toy. ‘Ox Blocks’ box promises “Noughts and Crosses with a novel twist”.
Monthly MathsJams – November 2012 Survey Data
Those of you with long, long memories (and who attend a MathsJam) may recall that back in November 2012, MathsJam HQ sent out a questionnaire to monthly regional meetups, with various questions about attendance and ping-pong balls. The purpose of the survey was to get a snapshot of what the monthly MathsJams are like, as…
Newcastle MathsJam March and April 2013 Recap
Better late than never, I’ve posted my recap of Newcastle MathsJam’s March and April meetings on my mathem-o-blog. We talked about topology, made a tiny blanket for a baby snake, failed to work a cardboard computer, and a lot more.