Double Maths First Thing’s call is, apparently, important to someone
Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread the joy, delight and – after a reminder from Sam Langford – hope in doing maths.
I’m currently up to my knees in writing up a method for calculating pi by hand that will (hopefully) be part of a world record attempt.
Speaking of which, big news in cubing this week: Charlie Eggins recorded the first ever sub-12-second 3-blind solve in competition (11.673s). As in, he started the timer, looked at a scrambled cube for about four seconds, nodded his blindfold into place, then solved it in about seven. I’d have barely picked up the cube by that point.
Links
This week’s maths adventures start with some art. Katie Steckles pointed me at a site full of tilings, while Sam Hartburn has been exploring symmetries.
Sam is, of course, a fellow member of the Pseudorandom Ensemble, who are available to play at shows, conferences, parties, et cetera. We’re not the only mathematical songwriters; I link to this write-up of the same work only because of its headline. Also in music, John Scalo figured out that a Daft Punk song “everyone” presumed was at 120bpm is likely at 123.45bpm.
Some interesting discussion in the TMiP chat about the Richmond Project report into the UK’s relationship with numbers (and the dismal media coverage thereof). Peter Rowlett expresses similar thoughts to mine here. (Some plots are so bad, they’re effectively conspiracies.)
In sport, a nice piece from Kit Yates about an unusual format for a tennis tournament. I’d like to see more sports use a Swiss system (the UEFA version isn’t really a Swiss system, but it’s a step in the right direction).
And lastly, here’s Oliver Johnson on how likely your shopping bill is to be a whole number of pounds.
Currently
This afternoon (2pm-3pm UK time), Jamie Gallagher is running a free New Scientist Live workshop on creative science communication.
Peter Rowlett has recently taken over as editor of the Mathematical Gazette, and would welcome appropriate contributions.
Tuesday coming (January 20th) is the day for both your traditionally-scheduled local MathsJam and the Chalkdust book club (6:30pm UK time).
That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have friends and/or colleagues who would enjoy Double Maths First Thing, do send them the link to sign up – they’ll be very welcome here.
If you’ve missed the previous issues of DMFT or – somehow – this one, you can find the archive courtesy of my dear friends at the Aperiodical.
Meanwhile, if there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something you want to tell me.
Until next time,
C