A group of over 800 scientists have signed their names to an article published in Nature, explaining why statistical significance shouldn’t be relied on so heavily as a measure of the success of an experiment. We asked statistics buff Andrew Steele to explain.
Review: How To Fall Slower Than Gravity, by Paul J Nahin
The cover text says How to Fall… is “more than a puzzle book”, which is roughly how I was planning to describe it: twenty-six questions that require an element of mathematical or physical thought, followed by solutions in the obvious bijection. Puzzle books, for me, are hit and miss – I’ve had a steady diet…
Mathematical Objects: Towers of Hanoi
A conversation about mathematics inspired by the Towers of Hanoi puzzle. Presented by Katie Steckles and Peter Rowlett. Update: Here’s a lovely knitted Towers of Hanoi, tweeted in response to this episode by Pat Ashforth. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: RSS | List of episodes
Review: Humble Pi, by Matt Parker
There are many things I admire about Matt Parker (or, to give him his full title, Friend of the Aperiodical, Mathematician Matt Parker) and his work, but probably top of the list is how he switches, apparently effortlessly, between modes. One minute, he’s showing off a fax machine to a group of hard-core geeks with…
realhats: Writing a $\LaTeX$ Package
A few months ago, Adam Townsend went to lunch and had a conversation. I wasn’t there, but I imagine the conversation went something like this: Adam: Hello.Smitha: Hello.Adam: How are you?Smitha: Not bad. I’ve had a funny idea, actually.Adam: Yes?Smitha: You know how the \hat command in LaTeΧ puts a caret above a letter?… Well…
History of maths competitions for secondary school students and undergraduates
Two competitions have been announced by the British Society for the History of Mathematics. Schools The schools competition invites participants to “make a case for the most important/your favourite mathematician in the history of mathematics” by either writing an article or producing a video or multi-media project. This competition is your chance to explore how…
Recent mathematical awards
As well as the recent Abel Prize award to Karen Uhlenbeck, here are some other mathematical and related awards from this month.