In one of his last ever interviews, Sir Michael Atiyah explains his love of maths from his early years exchanging money as a child, until his final months working on the Riemann Hypothesis. A true giant of Maths, who is sorely missed. RIP.
BIG STEM Communicators Network
As a new member of the BIG STEM Communicators Network I was very pleased to be featured in the member spotlight for spring 2019. (The original article is ‘members only’ so I’ve copied the text below.)
“As a new member of the BIG community I would like to introduce myself as the ‘Naked Mathematician’ (yes you did read that correctly). I am a Maths Tutor at the University of Oxford with a goal to reduce fear and anxiety towards maths. One of the ways in which I do this is to take my clothes off – what better way to emphasise that the subject is not as serious and intimidating as many people think than by teaching in my underwear! The concept began as a series of videos on my YouTube channel entitled ‘Equations Stripped’ where I strip back some of the most famous equations in maths (and myself) layer-by-layer so that everyone can understand, and has since evolved into a live performance now touring universities across the UK. My efforts to bring maths to a new audience have been recognised by the University of Oxford, where I was awarded first prize in the Outreach and Widening Participation category at the OxTALENT awards, and I have also been shortlisted for the Institute of Physics Early Career Communicator award.
The ‘Naked Mathematician’ is of course not appropriate for every audience and as such is only a small part of the work that I do to share my love of maths. My ‘Funbers’ series was broadcast throughout 2018 on BBC Radio, where in each episode I look at numbers more closely than anyone really should to bring you the fun facts that you didn’t realise you’ve secretly always wanted to know… I also try to involve my audience in the creative process as much as possible by issuing a call for questions on social media and then hosting a vote to decide the topic of my next video in the ‘I Love Mathematics’ video series. Finally, I combine my love of sport with maths in my popular ‘Maths v Sport’ talk which features a live penalty shootout on stage and an attempt to break a running world record (appropriately scaled of course!).
All of the material that I produce is available for free on my website tomrocksmaths.com and associated social media profiles @tomrocksmaths on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. I am very excited to have joined BIG and look forward to working with the community to help to share STEM subjects with the world!”
Carnival of Mathematics 167
You know you’ve made it as a maths communicator when you have the honour of hosting the Carnival of Mathematics (if you have no idea who I am or what I do then check out this interview for St Hugh’s College Oxford). But, before we get to the Carnival proper, as the creator of ‘Funbers’ I can’t help but kick things off with some fun facts about the number 167:
- 167 is the only prime number that cannot be expressed as the sum of 7 or fewer cube numbers
- 167 is the number of tennis titles won by Martina Navratilova – an all-time record for men or women
- 167P/CINEOS is the name of a periodic comet in our solar system
- The M167 Vulcan is a towed short-range air defence gun
- 167 is the London bus route from Ilford to Loughton
Now that we all have a new-found appreciation for the number 167, I present to you the 167th Carnival of Mathematics…
Reddit’s infamous theydidthemath page tackles ‘fake news’ on Instagram with a quite brilliant response to a post claiming that avoiding eating 1 beef burger will save enough water for you to shower for 3.5 years. Whilst the claim is hugely exaggerated we should still probably stop eating beef…
Next up, Singapore Maths Plus take a light-hearted look at the definition of ‘Singapore Math’ on Urban Dictionary – which is apparently the world’s number one online dictionary (sounds like more ‘fake news’ to me).
Math off the grid jumps in ahead of hosting next month’s Carnival to discuss the book ‘Geometry Revisited’ with a re-examination of the sine function as a tool for proving many fundamental geometric results. Scott Farrar also has the sine bug as he encourages us not to reject imprecise sine waves, but instead to consider the circle that they would form (warning contains a fantastic GIF).
John D Cook introduces what is now my new favourite game with his explanation of the ‘Soviet Licence Plate Game’. Have a go at the one to the right – can you make the four numbers 6 0 6 9 into a correct mathematical statement by only adding mathematical symbols such as +, -, *, /, ! etc. ? Send your answers to me @tomrocksmaths on Social Media or using the contact form on my website.
If by this point, you’ve had enough of numbers (which apparently happens to some people?!), then here’s a lovely discussion of ‘numberless word problems’ from Teaching to the beat of a different drummer. If that doesn’t take your fancy, how about some group theory combined with poetry via this ridiculous video of Spike Milligan on The Aperiodical…
If like me you’re still not really sure what you’ve just watched, then let’s get back to more familiar surroundings with some intense factorial manipulation courtesy of bit-player. What happens when you divide instead of multiply in n factorial? The result is truly mind-blowing.
Finding our way back to applications in the real world, have you ever wondered how the photo effect called ‘Tiny Planets’ works? Well, you’re in luck because Cor Mathematics has done the hard work for us and created some awesome mini-worlds in the process!
Sticking with the real world, Nautilus talks to Computer Scientist Craig Kaplan who discusses how the imperfections of the real world help him to overcome the limitations of mathematics when creating seemingly impossible shapes. They truly are a sight to behold.
With our feet now firmly planted in reality, let’s take a well-known mathematical curiosity – say the Birthday Problem – and apply it to the 23-man squad of the England men’s football team from the 2018 World Cup. Most of you probably know where this one is going, but it’s still fascinating to see it play out with such a nice example from Tom Rocks Maths intern Kai Laddiman.
The fun doesn’t stop there as we head over to Interactive Mathematics to play with space-filling curves, though Mathematical Enchantments take a more pensive approach as they mourn the death of the tenth Heegner Number.
Focusing on mathematicians, Katie Steckles talks all things Emmy Noether over at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Blog, whilst I had the pleasure of interviewing recent Fields Medal winner Alessio Figalli about what it feels like to win the biggest prize of all…
And for the grand finale, here are some particularly February-themed posts…
- Black History Month 2019 nominees courtesy of mathematically gifted and black
- A mathematical analysis of the Pringles Superbowl advert courtesy of The Aperiodical
- A mathematics formula for the perfect valentine courtesy of the NY Times and Imaginary Mathematics
The next Carnival of Mathematics will feature mathematical marvels posted online during the month of March, which of course means ‘Pi Day’ and all the madness that follows. Good luck to the next host ‘Math off the grid’ sorting through what will no doubt be an uncountably large number of fantastic submissions!
How can you show geometrically that 3 < π < 4?
Approximating Pi was a favourite pastime of many ancient mathematicians, none more so than Archimedes. Using his polygon approximation method we can get whole number bounds of 3 and 4 for the universal constant, with only high-school level geometry.
This is the latest question in the I Love Mathematics series where I answer the questions sent in and voted for by YOU. To vote for the next question that you want answered next remember to ‘like’ my Facebook page here.
What is the Gamma Function?
The answer to the latest question sent in and voted for by YOU!
We’ve got probability distributions, complex analysis and of course Pi (because it appears everywhere)… I give you the Gamma Function.
To vote for the next question that you want answered remember to ‘like’ my Facebook page here.
How does Modular Arithmetic work?
The latest question sent in and voted for by YOU!
Modular arithmetic might sound complicated, but most of us are using it everyday without even realising…
To vote for the next question that you want answered remember to ‘like’ my Facebook page here.
What are the most basic Mathematical Axioms?
The latest video answering the maths questions that YOU have selected.
I present ten rules that form the basis of all of maths as we know it…
To vote for the next question that you want answered remember to ‘like’ my Facebook page here.
What is the best way to win at the board game Monopoly?
Question number 4 sent in and voted for by YOU… enjoy!
To vote for the next question that you want answered remember to ‘like’ my Facebook page here.
What is the gravitational field of a hollow Earth?
Question number 3 sent in and voted for by YOU… enjoy!
How would gravity behave if the Earth had a hollow centre? Using Gauss’s Flux Theorem we can work out the answer…
To vote for the next question that you want answered remember to ‘like’ my Facebook page here.
