As was hinted at in a debate in Parliament to mark the centenary of Turing’s birth, a private members’ bill has been introduced in the House of Lords seeking a pardon for Turing – and Turing alone – for his conviction of gross indecency when homosexual acts were illegal in the UK. The bill has…
Number Gossip has been killed. Can you help?
For several years, Tanya Khovanova’s Number Gossip was an invaluable resource for maths fans whenever they found themselves saying, “that looks like a special number!” It was a simple list of integers and all the interesting facts known about each one; there were prime numbers, odd numbers, evil numbers, perfect numbers, and countless facts about…
Mathematics: a culture of historical inaccuracy?
Earlier this year, back when I somehow managed to find time to write blog posts (sorry!), I wrote a couple of pieces on incorrect but oft-repeated stories in history of mathematics, basically describing some issues and expressing my frustration. These were Apparently Gauss got in this bar fight with Hilbert… and Why do we enjoy…
2nd series of School of Hard Sums
Fans of scandalous gossip (and TV channel Dave’s recent foray into maths based light entertainment, Dara O Briain’s School of Hard Sums) will be interested to note the following tweet from Marcus Du Sautoy: “@pip6390: Is there another series of school of math in the pipe line?” yes! Filming in the new year. — Marcus…
Abel Prize 2013: Nominations open
Nominations are now open for the Abel Prize 2013. The Abel Prize is awarded annually by Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters “for outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics” and probably has a greater claim to be the ‘mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize‘ than does the, perhaps better known, Fields Medal. The Norwegian…
Aperiodcast – 29/07/2012
Here’s the fifth Aperiodcast, covering what’s happened on the site basically since the start of Summer. Peter is busy doing work, so it was just Katie and me blathering on about a variety of things. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: RSS | List of episodes
Maths Jam July 2012 – Paper Enigma
Having discovered this wonderful design for a paper Enigma machine, which uses a standard size crisp tube and does a pretty good job of encoding things like an Enigma machine, I decided it was worth trying it out. What better opportunity to use something which can encode secret messages than to send messages between two…