Dr Thomas Woolley of Oxford University’s Mathematical Institute will give a lecture on ‘Maths and Music’ on Monday 23 April at Thame Town Hall, starting at 7.30pm. The abstract follows. Free tickets are available from Thame Town Hall. Music is the expression of thoughts, ideas and feelings.Mathematics is the language of fact, rigour and knowledge.…
School of Hard Sums doubles the normal Dave audience
Last night saw the debut of Dave’s ‘School of Hard Sums’, a slightly strange but enjoyable maths show from Dara O Briain and Marcus du Sautoy. Was the show a success? Today Dara tweeted: So, would viewers of Dave actually want to watch a show about maths? Turns out… yes. We got double the normal…
Math/Maths 92: Put Alan Turing on a Buckliball
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…