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Matt Parker talks percentages
If anyone caught BBC1’s consumer moanfest Watchdog this week, they may have been pleasantly surprised to see Aperiodicobber ((The internet assures me that ‘cobber’ is Australian slang for ‘friend’.)) Matt Parker featured in the show. Following a segment about a UK sports chain and its shocking use of the classic ‘UP TO 70% OFF’ ruse, they invited Matt on the show to explain how to calculate percentages more easily, and so that Anne Robinson could mock him for being Australian, apparently.
Since the tips Matt presented were useful, we at the Aperiodical thought it was worth reproducing Parker’s Patented Percentage Ploys here, for your reference.
Domputer: the movie
If anyone remembers October 2012 (ahh, those were the days) you might recall we wrote about Aperiodipal Matt Parker, and his crazy project to build a computer out of dominoes. Well, it happened, but not much has happened since – sorting out a video of the event has taken a while. But it’s ready now! And it’s great!
Festival of the Spoken Nerd in geographical relocation shocker
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.
The minch, the mound and the light-gigaminch
On Wednesday 27th November 2013, friend of The Aperiodical and standup mathematician Matt Parker tweeted a link to his latest YouTube video.
In the video Matt apologises for some remarks on the imperial number system that he made in an earlier Number Hub video about the A4 paper scale. He then goes into some of the quirkiness of the many imperial number units used for measuring length. It is an unusual ‘apology’, although very entertaining.
This got me thinking about how I think about lengths, and I tweeted that I often think in ‘metric-imperial’ units of length, or multiples of exactly 25mm in my job as a civil and structural engineer – a metric inch, if you like. Colin Wright suggested the name ‘minch’ for these units; there are then two score minch to the metre.
Matt Parker’s Twitter Puzzle – 24th Sept
Matt’s at it again, posting puzzles on that Twitter:
Fun fact: you can arrange all the numbers from 1 to 17 so that each adjacent pair adds to a square number. Off you go! #mathspuzzle
— Matt Parker (@standupmaths) September 24, 2013
Plus a clarification:
To clarify: “each adjacent pair” means all but the end numbers are used twice. It’s every pair of neighbours as you go down the row.
— Matt Parker (@standupmaths) September 24, 2013
No spoilers in the comments please. Reply to Matt on Twitter!
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Some news from the world of capitalism: various maths people have things you can spend money on. Our roving reporters investigate.
Maths on Screen DVDs
Maths Inspiration, a maths theatre show which has been touring the country for a few years providing large-scale theatre shows for GCSE and A-Level students, has now released a set of DVDs of a special series of talks, which were filmed earlier this year.