As the hordes descend upon the city of Edinburgh for another August-ful of comedy, theatre, arts and culture, the question I’m sure you’re asking yourself is, ‘what about the maths?’ Zero problem: we’re here with a quick guide to some of the big pluses you’ll find in the Fringe Guide.
The programme for this year’s Cheltenham Science Festival has now been released, and tickets go on sale to members today (general booking opens next Wednesday). We asked Cheltenham local and science festival regular Martin Whitworth to send us his pick of the events for the mathematically inclined.
Festival season will soon be upon us. In a recently announced programme of over 200 events, the 2019 Cheltenham Science Festival includes many that will be of interest to the mathematically-minded, including events by maths presenters Marcus Du Sautoy, Ian Stewart, Matt Parker, Katie Steckles, Zoe Griffiths, Ben Sparks, Kyle D Evans and Hannah Fry.
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.
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.
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 Griffiths, Ben Orlin, Matt Parker and several others have chosen to use today to celebrate the number
I personally will be sketching the middle third Cantor set, as it’s my favourite fractal.
“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.
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.