Aperiodipal and MathsJam regular Rob Eastaway organised an inter-MathsJam competition for last month’s events, challenging Jams to make Fermi estimates on the back of an envelope. The prize was a copy of his new book, Maths on the Back of an Envelope. Here Rob gives a summary of the entries he received, and shares his…
This month’s Carnival of Mathematics is hosted here, at The Aperiodical. The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, and this month we’ve reached the heady heights of number 174.
The UNESCO Executive Board decided in October 2018 to endorse a recommendation, coordinated by the International Mathematical Union, to proclaim an International Day of Mathematics on 14th March each year. This recommendation is on the agenda for the UNESCO General Conference in November 2019 an, if adopted, will have its first official celebration on 14th March 2020, where the proposed theme is ‘Mathematics is Everywhere‘.
Preparations in anticipation for the adoption seem to be heating up, with a publicity drive underway. The IDM website says it will share free materials, projects, ideas and software, as well as a map of worldwide events and gatherings, all in multiple languages and under open licenses. You can sign up for a “one or two emails per month at most” mailing list to keep informed.
More information: The IMU wants to make π Day the International Day of Mathematics (October 2018).
Next Tuesday, October 8th, UCL Mathematics is hosting a Wikithon in celebration of Ada Lovelace Day from 5-7pm. The theme is Diversity in Mathematics, and the aim is to write Wikipedia articles about mathematicians from under-represented groups. The session will be led by Dr Jess Wade BEM (Imperial College, Physics) and Dr Alice White (Wellcome Trust).
Jess Wade was appointed BEM earlier this year for services to Gender Diversity in Science.
If you want to participate, you are asked to bring a laptop – pizza will be provided. You are asked to register (for free) for catering reasons.
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of August, is now online at PeterKrautzberger.org. The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
We now know that the number 42 can be written as the sum of three cubes: \[ 42 = (-80538738812075974)^3 + 80435758145817515^3 + 12602123297335631^3 \] This computational breakthrough was achieved in a collaboration between Andrew Sutherland (MIT) and Andrew Booker (Bristol). They announced the result by both replacing their homepages with the expression – with…
Simon Singh, author of Fermat’s Last Theorem and The Code Book, among others, has for the last three years been running a project called Top-Top Set. It’s an enrichment project to stretch kids at non-selective state schools in the UK.
Now, Simon is looking for an experienced maths teacher to help him grow the project even further.
Responsibilities for the Top-Top Set Project Co-ordinator include:
If that sounds like something you’d like to do, find more information about how to apply at the Good Thinking Society website.
If that doesn’t sound like something you’d like to do, or just while you’re waiting to hear if you’ve got the job, check out Parallel, a set of free weekly maths challenges developed to support Top-Top Set, but available to everyone.