Manchester Science Festival takes over the city from 23rd October – 2nd November this year, and it’s got a great selection of mathematical events. If you’re based locally, or thinking of heading over there for any of the time, here’s The Aperiodical’s guide to where to get your factorial fix.
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Poetry in Motion
Phil Ramsden gave an excellent talk at the 2013 MathsJam conference, about a particularly mathematical form of poetry. We asked him to write an article explaining it in more detail.
Generals gathered in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses.(Butler et al., “War Pigs”, Paranoid, 1970)
Brummie hard-rockers Black Sabbath have sometimes been derided for the way writer Geezer Butler rhymes “masses” with “masses”. But this is a little unfair. After all, Edward Lear used to do the same thing in his original limericks. For example:
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!-
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”(“There was an Old Man with a beard”, from Lear, E., A Book Of Nonsense, 1846.)
And actually, the practice goes back a lot longer than that. The sestina is a poetic form that dates from the 12th century, and was later perfected by Dante. It works entirely on “whole-word” rhymes.
My week at BCME8
This week I’m contributing to the 8th British Congress of Mathematics Education (BCME). If you’re going, I hope to see you there! (I’ll be there Monday after dinner and Wednesday all day; otherwise it’s a normal teaching week for us.)
I’m involved with three sessions – a fun Maths Jam, a ‘how I used history in my teaching’ workshop and a research talk based on half my PhD. Here are the details:
Manchester MathsJam Recap, December-ish 2013
Since I haven’t written a MathsJam recap for a few months, due to extreme busyness, this post will recap things which happened at December’s MathsJam as well as some other things I found in the pile of scrap paper when I went to tidy it all away over New Year.
MathsJam Conference 2013: early-bird discount has ended
Unlike good news websites, we’re reporting this after it’s useful: if you wanted to book for this year’s MathsJam annual conference at the discounted 10% off early-bird rate, you’re now NOT able to do so. However, there are still a few places left, although not many, so if you do want to join in with a weekend of fun maths and hanging out with cool people, you should get in there as quickly as possible.
The MathsJam conference takes place on the weekend of 2-3 November, 2013. Between now and then, there’s only one monthly pub-based MathsJam meetup, which will be on 22nd October in a pub near you.
As if that weren’t enough, there’s even more opportunities to Jam with Maths, in particular if you happen to be in or near Manchester. The Manchester Science Festival takes place in October, and there’ll be an extra one-off big MathsJam in Manchester during the festival, which will take place on 29th October (yes, that’s between the monthly Jam and the conference). The people of Manchester can’t get enough maths, it seems, and if you’re in the area or will be for the science festival, feel free to join them for a night of lighting talks, celebrity spotting and maths puzzles. For more information, visit the Manchester Science Festival website, or read the same copy on the MathsJam site.
More information
Manchester MathsJam recap, August 2013
This month we had a few new faces, and plenty of regulars. We also had someone’s first MathsJam, and someone’s last (in the UK): Manchester regular Nicolette brought along her 6-week old baby Julia, who experienced her first recreational maths night in a pub, and by this time next month Nicolette will be back in her native New Zealand (obviously, setting up a new MathsJam there).
Manchester MathsJam recap, July 2013
This month we had a lovely MathsJam, with plenty of old and new faces and a disturbing quantity of activity related to black and white counters. I’d brought a big pile of them and some stuff to do with them, and we got cracking.