Yesterday on Twitter I asked a question that had been asked of me: “Help: looking for web resources for 14 year old girl struggling with maths, particularly fractions, & maths confidence.“ I love Twitter for this kind of thing. People are so helpful. I am grateful to @SteelingSeconds, @Samuel_Hansen, @fittdr, @Domestic_jules, @ColetteWeston, @nick4glengate and @christianp…
Who are your important living mathematicians?
Paywall notwithstanding, you may have seen today the Times’ Eureka magazine celebrating science with a list of “the 100 most important people in British science and engineering“. With apologies for decisions made and promise of causing “some debate” from the Editor. So the question is: where are the mathematicians? Andrew Wiles is top, at #41.…
Ed & me
Here’s an update. If you didn’t read ‘Is Ed Miliband a “maths geek”?‘ now is a good time. So I didn’t get a reply from Ed, nor from anyone with concrete knowledge of his maths geek status. (Though I am grateful to @ColinTGraham, @MitchKeller, @Tysess and @stecks for re-tweeting my question to him.) But here…
Is Ed Miliband a "maths geek"?
In an article “Ed Miliband: Self-confessed maths ‘geek’ with a talent for diplomacy”, the Telegraph claimed the new leader of the opposition is a “self-confessed maths ‘geek’” but where, I wondered, did he “confess” it? James Grime adds a corollary: what did he mean by ‘maths geek’, anyway? In other words, we are asking, is…
How I wish I could calculate #pihunt
Today I spent an enjoyable time at Pi-hunting – the story of a mathematical obsession, run by the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) at the British Science Festival 2010. Part of this included a presentation by Noel-Ann Bradshaw on mnemonics to remember the digits of pi. An example is the following: How…
Dear all: Change of job, email
I just sent this message as an email to a list of people I know but haven’t told my new address to yet. This included my email address which, if you didn’t receive this and need to know it, you can pick up on the MSOR Network HE STEM webpage. I am no longer working…
Prime birthdays: James Grime phenomenon
In working out prime birthdays, James Grime remarked that his 1331th prime birthday would be “extra special”, and left it to his followers to work out why. The answer, of course, is that it is also his annual birthday. This is an interesting phenomenon: when he is 10957 days old, James Grime will also be…