Inspirations is a short movie by Cristóbal Vila, inspired by the work of MC Escher. While it isn’t particularly great considered purely as a work of art, it could be considered as an excellent advertisement for maths. It’s jam-packed with references not just to Escher pieces but to all sorts of famous mathematical art and ideas. I…
Science Showoff
Science Showoff is a monthly night which takes place in a pub in London, and features acts from all areas of science, who each have 9 minutes to perform an act – a science demo, a routine, songs, experiments – anything entertaining or fun. Having tried a little bit of the short-set, trying-to-be-funny type of…
Two possible errors in FTL neutrino result
The OPERA project has identified two possible sources of error in the experiment that appeared to observe neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light. The CERN press release reads: The OPERA collaboration has informed its funding agencies and host laboratories that it has identified two possible effects that could have an influence on its…
IBM piloting Watson as cloud analytics service
Watson is the computer that famously won the US game show Jeopardy last year, part of a traditional of IBM ‘grand challenges’ that includes the computer Deep Blue which in 1997 won a chess match against world champion Garry Kasparov. At the time it was reported that IBM intended Watson to be applicable in business cases…
Edexcel chief says the maths curriculum is failing students
The UK’s national ambition to lead in new high-tech industries is threatened by an alarmingly widespread cultural apathy to maths in this country. Maths is seen by too many students as something to be endured rather than enjoyed. … It is a cultural and an educational problem. Our experts in education note that young people…
Invisibility from elastic waves
A technique, which a University of Manchester press release describes quite incorrectly as a “Harry Potter style ‘cloaking’ device”, could protect buildings from earthquakes. Dr William Parnell and his team have shown that by cloaking components of structures with pressurised rubber, powerful waves such as those produced by an earthquake would not ‘see’ the building…
Computer programme with 150 IQ
A computer programme has been developed which researchers believe can score “at least 150” on an IQ test. According to British Mensa, which describes itself as “the High IQ Society”, there are many standard IQ tests in use around the world but “on most intelligence tests, average IQ score is 100”. The Mensa websites lists the…