A new episode of the Math/Maths Podcast has been released. A conversation about mathematics between the UK and USA from Pulse-Project.org. This week Samuel and Peter spoke about: Thomas M. Rodgers (3 Aug 1944 – 10 Apr 2012); Racism in academic mathematics; Buckliball; What sank the Titanic?; Physicist Uses Math to Beat Traffic Ticket; Best…
Racism in academic mathematics in America
Jonathan Farley has written a shocking account of racism in academic mathematics. Framed as a discussion of barriers to winning the Fields medal for black mathematicians, Farley tells three stories, of an MAA conference in 1951 Tennessee, of David Blackwell and his own career. The stories are shocking because, although I am aware terrible racism…
Maths outreach isn’t easy, compared with science
An article from Reuters talks about the problem with doing maths outreach work: In the American drive to boost science and math education, it’s science that has all the kid-friendly sizzle: Robots and roller coasters, foaming chemical reactions, marshmallow air cannons. Math has… well, numbers. The article outlines several efforts underway to overturn this issue…
What a nice job you have
Much has been made on Twitter of the recent list from CareerCast.com and posted at the Wall Street Journal of the 200 “Best and Worst Jobs of 2012” (a tweet on this from the IMA has been retweeted over fifty times). The reason? Mathematician is in the top ten, at number ten in fact. There…
BAMC writing prize
The IMA have announced a competition connected to the 54th British Applied Mathematics Colloquium (BAMC) which took place last month at University College London. Four prizes of £100 are available for the best reports of between 500 and 1,500 words by attendees at the recent BAMC who are students or completed their PhDs within the…
Electoral reforms and non-transitive dice
Guest post by Andrew, of Manchester MathsJam. Andrew can be found on Twitter as @andrew_taylor and blogs occasionally about maths, among other things, at andrewt.net. “Grime Dice” are a set of five coloured dice with unusual combinations of numbers on them. The red die, for example, has five fours and a nine. The blue one has…
Labyrinth salt installation by Motoi Yamamoto
Labyrinth salt installation by Motoi Yamamoto: