What’s this? Multimedia? Whatever next? What you are about to click is an audio extravaganza: a mathematical conversation between me and Dave Gale, who is @reflectivemaths on twitter. It’s the first episode of Wrong, But Useful. Mentioned in this podcast: The Maths/Maths podcast (with Samuel Hansen and Peter Rowlett) –
Read More →The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is one of very few library books I’ve ever failed to return on time. There’s a certain poetry to it: it’s a biography of Paul Erdős, one of the 20th century’s more important mathematicians, and certainly the most prolific. Yesterday would have been his
Read More →The student blinked, and the Mathematical Ninja had covered the board in a colourful diagram. “It’s easy,” said the Mathematical Ninja, “to work out the fractions of pi in each quadrant – once you know a few rules.” The student automatically reached for a pen. Whenever the Mathematical Ninja mentioned
Read More →What’s on your mind this week? Any burning questions you think I can answer? Just leave them in the comments below.
Read More →“How is it,” asked my friend Jo, “that five of my friends are celebrating birthdays today?” This is, although it might not seem it, closely related to reading the minds of Alex Bellos’s parents. By which I mean: randomness doesn’t always look random. From here on in, I’m going to
Read More →I’m writing this fresh from giving a talk at Poole Grammar School about the maths of Alice in Wonderland and didn’t get a real chance there to talk about one of the ninjas behind it. János Bolyai is my favourite kind of mathematician: the glorious failure. He came really close
Read More →Another Friday, another SQA. It’s the Ides of March today – what do you need to beware of?
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