The Aperiodical 

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Double Maths First Thing: Issue 1B

By Colin Beveridge. Posted March 12, 2025

Double Maths First Thing thinks ISO8601’s great

Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread mathematical joy — I almost misspelt “mathematical” as “mayhem”, so let’s have a bit of that, too.

I spent much of the weekend with a secret cabal of mathematical musicians at an undisclosed location. I’m not authorised to say whether we were rehearsing original maths songs and I certainly couldn’t comment on rumours of a future gig on the roof of the RI. By which I mean, you’ll likely hear more details in the future.

Links

What’s been on my radar this week? Well, r/math has been surprisingly interesting, with a dissection of a square into 32 similar triangles and a nice pandigital approximation for e.

It was pointed out to me that I didn’t say what I was trying to solve blindfold last week. To clarify, I’ve been learning the M2 method for solving the Rubik’s Cube. If you were a computer, you might prefer a more brute force method.

When I was about 8, I got into trouble at school for saying “DAMN!” when my Polydron dodecahedron collapsed. If you want to have the same experience of frustration, you can get a 10% discount over the next few months. (That’s not an affiliate link, we don’t roll that way around here.)

A way we do roll is to stand up and say “oi! no!” to bullies. I’m conscious that I have pretty close to a full bingo card of privilege, and that a lot of the toxic behaviour in academia flies beyond my radar. Dr Rachel Los’s Anti-Acknowledgements (p113), (or more conveniently, in a toot) in her thesis (brilliantly titled “Play Nice or Pay the Price”) make me sigh in despair; men need to stop behaving like this, and the “not all men” men need to call out this sort of behaviour.

Currently

Less upsettingly, there’s a lot going on at the moment! This week has Pi Day, about which I am largely curmudgeonly, but some people erroneously believe it’s more Geek Christmas than Big MathsJam is. Whatever, you do you!

Tuesday coming (March 18th, 2025) is the traditional time for your local MathsJam — find your nearest one here, along with instructions on how to start your own if the nearest one is inconvenient. There’s also an online (UK) one if that’s better for you.

And on Monday coming (March 17th), there’s a Finite Group livestream. The FG Discord is a great hangout for mathematicians, and I always enjoy watching the livestreams with my 11yo.

Last week, I neglected to mention that TMiP is organising an Animation Generation Collaboration — a challenge to see what people come up with, and to share techniques.

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

Double Maths First Thing: Issue 1

By Colin Beveridge. Posted September 11, 2024

Double Maths First Thing is Colin’s weekly news summary. Or autumnal, if you’re reading this after the equinox. You can sign up to receive it in your inbox on a Wednesday morning here.

Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician. It’s Wednesday morning, and it’s Double Maths First Thing.

Shape-ology

Over on the Talking Maths In Public WhatsApp group, we’ve been looking at collapsible polyhedra, which Barney Maunder-Taylor calls Flatonic Solids. He’s not the only one, though: here’s a satisfying Instagram reel and an article by Liz Meenan in case you want to make your own.

It also reminded me that you can do cool things with pop-ups, whether or not you have the book.

Speaking of books

Tom Briggs has been compiling suggestions of maths books that aren’t about teaching. I’m given to believe he might be making his own addition to the list in due course.

Peter Rowlett and his son have been reading Gulliver’s Travels, and found an interesting early description of something computery. A biased generator of randomness that produces plausible English? I bet the venture capitalists would be all over that.

Sudoku

I recently had cause to revisit the Miracle Sudoku video — memorably described at the time by Ben Orlin:

You’re about to spend the next 25 minutes watching a guy solve a sudoku.
Not only that, but it’s going to be the highlight of your day.

The highlight of my day recently was coming across Phistomephel’s ring, which is a neat consequence of standard sudoku rules.

Tony Mann pointed me at another Cracking the Cryptic video with the same energy — the frustrations and feelings of stupidity that come with not having the answer yet, followed by the sheer joy of having worked out something clever.

Another (and significantly shorter) video plausibly worth your time is Alyssa Williams and Christian Scott at G4G discussing how to set variant sudoku.

Joy in maths

Back to taking pleasure in maths, here’s a short interview with Talithia Williams, PhD: I loved the bit about maths appreciation, and trying to change the mindset that maths is about doing calculations to pass a test.

Another article that caught my eye this week was about climbing. Or rather, spotting an error on the climbing wall and getting it fixed. It’s interesting for several reasons, but what grabbed my attention was what I think of as x-ray vision: the power to see that something looks off, and the insistence that it be put right. That strikes me as a very mathematical thing. (And, speaking for myself, possibly an autistic thing. Drives me MAD when people don’t care about breaking the rules, I tell you.)

For your listening pleasure

This week, I have mostly been listening to:

• Tim Harford’s Cautionary Tales
• Bec Hill and Matt Parker’s A Problem Squared
• Evelyn J Lamb and Kevin Knudson’s My Favorite Theorem
• Katie Steckles and Peter Rowlett’s Mathematical Objects — I understand that series 8 is imminent.

I’ve not yet picked up the TMiP podcast, but we all should. And Sam Hansen would give me endless, deserved grief if I didn’t mention Relatively Prime.

The week ahead

Thanks to September ending on a Monday, the monthly MathsJam meet-up is coming around distressingly quickly — those that meet on the traditional penultimate Tuesday will do so on September 17th. You can find your local MathsJam here — I’ll be at the Weymouth one.

Also, if you’re planning to go to Big MathsJam in November, early-bird pricing ends on Sunday.

There’s a Finite Group livestream on Friday, September 13th at 9pm BST — Katie and Ayliean are putting the ‘fun’ into ‘fundamental theorems’, it says here.

That’s all for this week! If there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website.

Until next time,

C

My conference experience: TMiP 2019

By Max Hughes. Posted May 18, 2023

This is a guest post from maths communicator Max Hughes. If you’re thinking about going to the Talking Maths in Public conference this summer, read on to find out what it’s like.

I first attended Talking Maths in Public in Cambridge at the end of August of 2019. At the time I was just about to go into my second year of a maths degree – knowing that I wanted to go into maths communication and outreach after finishing university, and keen to learn more.

Having never attended a conference before, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I arrived in Cambridge the evening before it kicked off. Luckily for me, I didn’t need to spend the evening alone in the hotel dwelling on my pre-conference nerves, as there was a planned pub meet up later in the evening for those who had already arrived in Cambridge.

Full of trepidation, I stepped into the lift of the hotel I was staying in, unaware that when the doors opened, I would be transported to a fantastic world of nerdery that I have never since left: the UK maths communication community. This may sound dramatic, but much like Charlie taking his first steps into the chocolate room of Willy Wonka’s factory, or Dorothy opening a door into the technicoloured world of Oz, I knew for certain that this was a seminal moment in my life.

Congregated before me in the hotel lobby was an almost perfect microcosm of the conference attendees. In my first moments at this gathering, I was greeted by a lecturer from my university, multiple popular mathematics YouTubers and speakers, a freelance editor, a couple of teachers and a mathematical knitting enthusiast… to name just a few. The other attendees made me feel almost instantly at ease in this new environment, and I went to the pub confident and excited to see what the rest of the conference would bring.



Day one of the conference started with some useful icebreaker activities followed by an engrossing talk on “Maths on YouTube”. After a short break there was a choice of 5 different workshops to choose from, presented by attendees demonstrating their own mathematical engagement activities. Forever a fan of the fantasy genre, I chose to attend an intriguing workshop that used dragons to engage and excite people about the wonders of mathematics.

The second day started off with my favourite session of the conference; a series of lightning talks by speakers and attendees talking about their work, that covered a diverse range of different types of events and projects, helping to paint a picture of the maths communication landscape not just in the UK, but globally. Following this was an important session on promoting inclusivity within engagement activities, as well as some smaller group discussion sessions and a panel on writing about mathematics. The final keynote session of the day was particularly spellbinding, with magician Neil Kelso informing the crowd on how to astonish audiences, showing that maths and magic have an unexpected amount in common.

By far the best part of the conference was the people, from the attendees brimming with mathematical possibility to the organisers who were passionate and invested in running a conference that was in equal parts informative, accepting and fun. The final morning of the conference was centred around just this, the people, in a range of networking events. This is how I found myself punting along the river Cam with fellow attendees solving maths problems to aid us in a “treasure punt”.

Throughout the entire conference a palpable air of jovial mathematics permeated the space. Whether it was impromptu conversations on mathematical cabaret, tense games of “The Mind”, or mathematical discourse on the toilet blackboards (yes, that’s a thing at the Isaac Newton Institute), the creative expression of mathematical joy was awe inspiring. From exploring the ins and outs of a beautiful city to being engrossed in deep mathematical conversation with a newly made friend, there were new perspectives around every corner.

I can honestly say that Talking Maths in Public 2019 acted as the perfect first step in my journey into the world of maths communication. The skills, contacts, and inspiration I gained empowered me to start properly communicating maths, creating a domino effect that led me to being employed as a maths outreach professional who truly feels part of a community of UK based mathematics communicators.

Booking open for TMiP 2023

By Katie Steckles. Posted March 23, 2023



Maths communicators: assemble! It’s that time again, when everyone’s favourite biannual maths communication conference happens (every two years, in case you weren’t sure). Talking Maths in Public is a conference for people who work in, or otherwise participate in, communicating mathematics to the public.

Talking Maths in Public

By TMiP 2017 Bursary Recipients. Posted May 3, 2019

In 2017, the University of Bath hosted the first Talking Maths in Public conference, a gathering for UK maths communicators. As part of the event, attendance bursaries were awarded to students interested in maths outreach, and the recipients of the bursaries wrote about their experiences. To celebrate the fact that a second TMiP conference will be happening this year (booking is open now, and we’re all going to be there!), we’re sharing their report of TMiP 2017. You can find out more about this year’s event (which also includes a bursary scheme) at talkingmathsinpublic.uk.

This post was jointly written by Imogen Morris, (University of Edinburgh), David Nkansah (University of Glasgow) and Olivia Sorto (University of Edinburgh).