Double Maths First Thing: Northerly 3-5, moderate, fair, good, some kraken later.
Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread the joy and delight of doing maths, solving puzzles, and making the world a better place.
I’m currently in the middle of writing a song about how the Shipping Forecast ought to include information about sea monsters, in case you’re wondering how a sensible grown-up mathematician spends their working week.
I should also mention that the podcast project is making progress – we’ve recorded one (out of two) interviews for it and we’re hoping to have the pilot episode available by the end of May. You’ll hear about it here.
Links
There’s a new issue of Chalkdust (a magazine for the mathematically curious) hitting the department coffee-tables this week. Relatedly, Scroggs explains the front cover and a huge congratulations to Tom Briggs, the first author to win both the Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Book Of The Year awards. The Mathematician’s Library is available wherever good books are sold. Also in Issue 23 Ffreuer Bristow grabs my attention with an article about the evils of Tetris and Elinor Flavell has a 380-year-old way to construct the solution to a cubic.
Another way to grab my attention, is to mention elections and/or tournaments. Christian Lawson-Perfect mentions that there’s a sequence in the OEIS related to the D’Hondt method, which, frankly, I dhond’t understand. (I understand the method, just not what the sequence is doing.)
In geometry news, Henry Segerman has been 3D-printing cool stuff, Katie Steckles points me at some terrific geometric poetry, and David K Butler shows off how to construct arithmetic from vectors.
When is a knot not a knot? Raphael Appenzeller and José Pedro Quintanilha have a proof by sleight of hand as well as some demonstration videos.
Some smashing cartoons come to me via Tomáš Znamenáček (in Czech) about the perils of data-driven decision making (in English).
Currently
You probably want to drop everything and get along to MathsWorld in Southwark this evening (Wednesday 22nd April) for Ayliean’s mathematical art workshop from 7pm UK time. Tickets are £8, or £5 for MathsWorld members.
Kevin Houston and Costas Loizou are running a free workshop on transitioning into education research, in Leeds and online on Wednesday April 29th. In-person registration is closed, but you can register by April 22nd (today – not sure when, but don’t hang about) to participate remotely.
A grant I approve of, but wish there was no need for: the Grace Chisholm Young Fellowships are designed to allow mathematicians to take a break in their career for – for example – family responsibilities, while not leaving a gap on their CV. While it’s administered by the LMS’s Committee for Women and Diversity in Mathematics, it’s not restricted to women. (I’m a man who took a career break to be primary carer for the kids, and think it should be more common.) Deadline for applications is Monday April 27th.
Over at the Finite Group, there’s a livestream on Tuesday April 28th at 7pm UK time, in which Scroggs and Katie talk about crossnumbers – and I can think of few people I’d rather listen to talk about puzzles than those two.
Karrie Liu is hosting the upcoming Carnival, and you can submit items at the usual page.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have friends and/or colleagues who would enjoy Double Maths First Thing, do send them the link to sign up – they’ll be very welcome here.
If you’ve missed the previous issues of DMFT or – somehow – this one, you can find the archive courtesy of my dear friends at the Aperiodical.
Meanwhile, if there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something you want to tell me.
Until next time,
C