# You're reading: Posts Tagged: Matt Parker

### Matt Parker does BBC GCSE maths revision videos

Stand-up mathematician and friend of the site Matt Parker has produced a set of videos for teacher resource site BBC Teach, aimed at GCSE maths students.

### 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 Festival of the Spoken Nerd; the previous, he’s inspiring a “lively” bottom set of year 9s, after putting together a Numberphile video for people somewhere in between.

While Humble Pi – A Comedy Of Maths Errors is pitched firmly at the last of those groups – for a popular maths book to hit the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list, it really needs to be – there’s plenty in it for the others.

### Happy Thirdsday!

Today is the third of January, and the third day of the year – and since this year it also falls on a Thursday, making for excellent pun opportunities, a group of mathematicians including Jim Propp, Evelyn Lamb, Zoe GriffithsBen Orlin, Matt Parker and several others have chosen to use today to celebrate the number $\frac{1}{3}$ (and in America, you’d even write the date as 1/3). Today is officially Thirdsday! Celebrate by:

I personally will be sketching the middle third Cantor set, as it’s my favourite fractal.

### Review: You Can’t Polish a Nerd, Floppy Disk #211 (Festival of the Spoken Nerd)

“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.

### MathsJam Gathering: A Review

It was with trepidation that I booked tickets for the MathsJam Gathering in 2015. I loved the sound of the event, but what if everyone else was cleverer than me? What if people thought I was a fraud because I wasn’t an academic? What if nobody talked to me? I needn’t have worried. MathsJam is one of the friendliest, most welcoming events I’ve ever experienced. Lots of people talked to me, I learned new things, I laughed a lot. I’ve since been to two more gatherings, and have already booked for the next one in November.

### My cat isn’t psychic – but your pet could be!

Do you remember Paul the Octopus? During the 2010 World Cup, in what his Wikipedia page calls “divinations”, Paul was offered boxes of food labelled with different competitors. Whichever box he ate from first was considered his prediction for the match, with some success.

Yesterday morning, my son and I did something similar with our cat, Tabby. This is in response to Matt Parker’s latest initiative, Psychic Pets. Matt is hoping to get thousands of pet owners to make predictions, in order that the odds are good a pet can be found which predicted all prior results for both teams in the final. The good news is it’s fairly straightforward to take part.