This month we had two new attendees, as well as some regulars. We talked about lots of different things, although one recurring theme was the Crisp Tube Enigma machine, which we were using to send coded messages to Newcastle MathsJam. There will shortly be a video chronicling our achievements, and I’ll post a link to the video and writeup here once it’s ready.
You're reading: Posts Tagged: MathsJam
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- Nottingham: Peter has everyone where he wants them in a game of Mad Abel
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- Nottingham: Peter teaching new victims Mad Abel
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- Nottingham: Mike Black is building a pyramid from four identical pieces… or not, in fact
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- Nottingham: Playing the ZAG crossword from IMA Mathematics Today. 7 down is prime, 4 across is square, etc.
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- Nottingham: Mike did it! A pyramid!
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- Nottingham: playing with Kit Yates/Marcus du Sautoy/Dara O Briain’s Radio Times puzzle page
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- Manchester’s arty tantrix photo
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- Manchester: a numbers puzzle
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- Manchester: A game of Perudo has occurred. We notice the dice on the box diagram are all wrong.
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- Newcastle: tiling hyperbolic space with heptagons
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- Newcastle: Steven has mastered making buckyball heptagons, so we have another model of hyperbolic space
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- Newcastle: a buckyball Loch Ness monster!
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- Newcastle: a rolling cube puzzle from www.mathpuzzle.com.
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- Dorset plays Qwirkle!
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- Möbius bagels at Cardiff Maths Jam
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- Cambridge: the puzzle table
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- A geometry problem at Cambridge MathsJam
MathsJam Annual Conference 2012 booking now open
Booking is now open for the 2012 MathsJam annual conference. As well as being a regular monthly event in pubs all over the UK and the world, MathsJam has an annual gathering on a weekend in November, where attendees enjoy lightning 5-minute talks, long coffee breaks and general mathematical hanging out – as well as MathsJam’s standard “puzzles, games, problems, and sharing fun stuff with like-minded self-confessed maths enthusiasts”.
This year, the conference will take place at Wychwood Park, near Crewe, on the weekend of 17th-18th November 2012. The Aperiodical editorial team will almost certainly be in attendance, so watch this space for details of the exciting things we have planned for the weekend.
Places cost £165 for one person or £250 for two people for the whole weekend, with discounts for the unemployed, the early, and those who don’t need a room at the conference park.
More information: MathsJam 2012.
Manchester MathsJam June 2012 Recap
Having been absent from the May MathsJam, I have been promised a writeup by Manchester MathsJam regular and sometime Aperiodical article-writer Andrew Taylor. This has not yet arrived, and in the interests of making things as temporally confusing as possible, I’m going to post the June writeup now and let that one happen whenever it happens.
June’s MathsJam coincided with one of England’s games in the Euro Football Time 2012 Soccer Cup, or whatever it’s called, but luckily the pub we use for our MathsJams is one of the few locations in Manchester not showing the game, and instead we were treated to some live jazz from the other room.
The Super Subtraction Feat
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How I Unofficially Broke The World Record That Never Was
One of the 70-digit subtraction sums I did for training purposes.
In April, a gentleman called B. Sai Kiran became, briefly, internet-famous for doing arithmetic. In Hyderabad, he subtracted a 70-digit number from another in the barest smidgen over a minute – 60.05 seconds, at the second attempt.
National Science & Engineering Competition at your local Big Bang Fair
With the national fair over, the regional Big Bang Fairs are taking place. These aim to “inspire and enthuse the next generation of engineers and scientists”. This year the Nottingham Maths Jam group will be at the East Midlands fair repeating our puzzles stall, previously seen at the East Midlands Big Bang Fair 2011.
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| Maths Jam stall at the East Midlands Big Bang Fair 2011 |
The fairs in my part of the world are the East Midlands (East Midlands Conference Centre, University of Nottingham, 28 June 2012) and West Midlands (Thinktank, Birmingham, 26 June 2012), both organised by David Ault and his team at By Design who ran the very successful 2011 East Midlands fair. You can find your nearest via the Big Bang website.
One major reason for attending the fairs is to enter a CREST or STEM project to the National Science & Engineering Competition (East Midlands competition page; West Midlands competition page). According to the website, this
seeks to showcase and reward the best student projects from every area of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). It is open to all 11-18 year olds living in the UK.
Students entered projects by attending a Big Bang Near Me event. The best entries from these are invited to showcase their project at The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists’ and Engineers’ Fair, held every year.
There is over £50,000 of prizes available including cash awards and trips abroad. Prizes are available for teams and individuals, for different age groups (Junior: 11 to 14 years; Intermediate: 15 to 16; Senior: 17 to 18 years) and across a range of disciplines and themes. The overall individual winners in the senior age category will be crowned the UK Young Scientist of the Year or the UK Young Engineer of the Year.
Find out more at the competition website. So what are you waiting for? Register to attend your local Fair via the website.
MathsJam April 2012 Photos
If you’ve taken a picture at a MathsJam and you’d like to share it, please submit it to our tumblr.
Manchester MathsJam April 2012 Recap
The turnout this month was slightly lower than usual, but many of our regulars were there and we had the chance to have some good discussions and really get into things.