In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical podcasts from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the podcast and asking them about what they do.
We spoke to Helen Arney, Steve Mould and Matt Parker, the three members of science comedy trio Festival of the Spoken Nerd, about their new podcast, A Podcast of Unnecessary Detail.
“You Can’t Polish a Nerd” is the latest in a run of live stage shows from science/maths comedy trio Festival of the Spoken Nerd. Consisting of friends of the Aperiodical Matt Parker, Steve Mould and Helen Arney, FOTSN is a mixture of comedy, science, music and live demos, and they’ve sent us a copy of their latest show to review.
Since the British Science Festival’s programme of events for the 2014 festival is now online, you can search through it to find all the mathematical/maths-related events which will be taking place this September in Birmingham. But this is a full-service maths blog, and so you don’t have to because we’ve done it for you. (If you’d rather take a look yourself, the full listing is on the BSA website).
Anticapitalists, please note: This post is categorised “not-directly-paid-for friendertisement”. We’re plugging a thing our friends do because we think it’s good, but alas, they make money off it. Please read with caution.
Fans of mathematics and science in general will be pleased to hear that they no longer have to travel long distances to see comedy show Festival of the Spoken Nerd – as it’s on tour! The show features Stand-up Mathematician and friend of the Aperiodical Matt Parker, as well as some-time mathematician Steve Mould, and singer of science and maths songs Helen Arney. The comedy trio are visiting over 30 locations around the UK and performing their new show, Full Frontal Nerdity, which I’m assured ‘contains strong language and spreadsheets’, and is guaranteed to ‘feed your brain, tickle your ribs and light your Bunsen burner’. It’s a longer version of the show they performed at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, and would make a great group night out for a maths department or other gathering of scientifically-minded humans (just saying).
Full details of the show, and a list of dates, can be found at the Festival of the Spoken Nerd website.
Starting next week, the historic city of Edinburgh will be taken over by entertainers of all types, performing comedy, dance, theatre and music, entertaining visitors to their massive world-famous festival fringe. Since discerning mathematicians sometimes also enjoy being entertained, I thought I’d write a roundup of the shows maths has non-empty intersection with.
First up, since we haven’t mentioned him in a while, it’s Alan Turing! No, his reanimated corpse isn’t performing edgy stand-up, but theatre company Idle Motion is performing a visual theatre piece entitled That Is All You Need To Know, celebrating the work of Bletchley Park codebreakers. Alan Turing Alan Turing Alan Turing.
Next week, scientists, science fans and science communicators will converge on Cheltenham town hall for a week of high-quality science festival. But how much of the programme is given over to the queen of all sciences, Mathematics? Here’s a list of some of the events going on we’d be interested in going to.
Ada Lovelace Day Live! is “an evening of fun, inspiration and robots” in London in October. The website offers this description:
Join Helen Arney, Dr Suzie Sheehy, Gia Milinovich, Dr Helen Scales, Helen Keen, Dr Alice Bell, Sarah Angliss and Sydney Padua for an entertaining evening of science, technology, comedy and song on Ada Lovelace Day. Featuring all manner of wonders, from marine biology and particle physics to the secrets of fridges and performance robots, Ada Lovelace Day Live! is an event not to be missed!
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. The event is also supported by the Women’s Engineering Society, who will be presenting the Karen Burt Memorial Award to a newly chartered woman engineer.
The event takes place on Tuesday 16 October 2012 at 6.30pm at the IET in London. Tickets cost £10.
More information: Ada Lovelace Day Live!