Double Maths First Thing is like a tall, dark stranger with some coal and some whisky
Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread mathematical joy into 2025 and beyond. I note that 1/1/2025 is the first day since September 25th, 1936 where the day, month and year are all square numbers. I’ve even delayed today’s DMFT to go live at 09:00:00 (UTC), because it is absolutely hip to be square. Peter Rowlett has collected several other numerical facts about 2025.
That’s all I’ve got for you 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.
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.
Double Maths First Thing is where there area 10 kinds of people: those who understand hexadecimal, and F others.
Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to share joy and delight in maths, beyond and instead of the test. Around here, we count in hexadecimal.
My big news!
Slap-Dash Pete, a chocolate-brown Patterdale terrier, who has clearly won the battle over whether he’s allowed on the furniture.
This is not remotely maths-related, but we’ve just been adopted by a Patterdale terrier called Slap-Dash Pete. He’s slipped straight into the family as if he’s always been here. You definitely need a picture.
Also not-maths-related, I finished third in my Toastmasters area humorous speaking contest. I spoke about the process of figuring out I’m autistic and how that relates to being a mathematician. I thought it was a good talk, but it wasn’t the best on the day.
Maths events and news!
It is currently Maths Week England, an event aiming to help people realise that maths is for everyone and not only for genius. See what’s going on near you!
Much less joyfully, it seems that Ada Lovelace Day Live will no longer be happening. It’s galling that tech giants can’t (or rather, won’t) find a few quid down the back of a beanbag to help make sure there’s space at the table for everyone. The organisation lives on, and the day celebrating women in science lives on, but it’s sad that the flagship event has to stop.
Dates of local MathsJams are all over the place this month. Some have moved to yesterday in support of MWE, but others — including Weymouth — are sticking to the traditional penultimate Tuesday date. Find your local ‘Jam here — if there isn’t one near you, there are instructions on how to start one; alternatively, you may prefer to join in the Online MathsJam that’s usually on the antepenultimate Tuesday. Because of course it is. You just missed it. Sorry.
Some maths games that very much don’t suck are those created by the legendary Simon Tatham, which have stolen about as much of my work time as Tetris and Slay The Spire. Simon posted on Mathstodon about the ZX Spectrum BASIC manual. For geeks my age (and probably a little older), this is one of the 1980s’ most significant works of literature, the book that taught me how to program (and to develop bad habits that would take years to unlearn.)
(Incidentally, Mathstodon is an excellent community of maths people, and far less shouty than the Other Place. I’ve heard good things about Bluesky, also; I gather it’s possible to bridge between the two, but don’t ask me what that means. I’m already in too deep.)
Another legend, Rob Eastaway, is making a rare screen appearance in a Numberphile video about Philip Henslowe’s diary and the shift from Roman numerals to Arabic.
A third and final legend for this week: Tanya Khovanova is making foams out of felt. A foam is a mathematical object rather than something to make safety equipment out of, it transpires.
That’s all for this week! In the meantime, 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.
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. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something I should be aware of.
Here’s the second edition of our new podcast, All Squared. This time we talked to Dr Andrew Taylor, PhD, about nonsense formulas in the news. In particular, since we recorded very close to pancake day, we took a close look at the various “formulas for the perfect pancake” printed in UK newspapers.
PRIMES, it turns out, isn’t just a word for numbers without any proper factors – it’s also a mentoring programme for high school students in the USA, based at MIT. The students visit there once a week from February to May, and work with academics on real research. They also run similar programmes for computer science and computational biology.
The scheme has recently been extended to allow students not local to MIT (or in possession of a private jet or teleporter ((Although if they’ve invented a teleporter, this scheme probably can’t help them much)) ) to attend. PRIMES-USA is a national scheme for students across the country, which requires them to visit MIT for a conference in May, but the rest of the meetings take place via Skype.
It looks like Number Gossip is back, as gossipy and numerate as ever. Tanya hasn’t announced anything on her blog yet, so I thought a quick public-service note was in order.
For several years, Tanya Khovanova’s Number Gossip was an invaluable resource for maths fans whenever they found themselves saying, “that looks like a special number!” It was a simple list of integers and all the interesting facts known about each one; there were prime numbers, odd numbers, evil numbers, perfect numbers, and countless facts about unique properties of numbers.
