Topics I taught this year
It’s been quite a year. We introduced a totally new mathematics degree course, redesigned from the previous version. In addition, restructures and people leaving meant there were fewer of us teaching...
View Article“When numbers have meaning it makes it a lot easier for me” vs “I over think...
In 1693, Christiaan Huygens was struggling to learn the new calculus developed by his former student Gottfried Leibniz. He wrote to Leibniz asking for “any important problems where they should be...
View ArticleNumerical coincidences for 2025
There seem to be a lot of numerical coincidences bouncing around concerning the new year 2025. For example, it’s a square number: \( 2025 = 45^2 \). The last square year was \(44^2 = 1936\), and the...
View ArticleSocial media and mathematical chat
A brief update about the state of social media. A couple of years ago, I wrote about the decline of Twitter and how I was going to consciously shift my activity to Mathstodon. Just over a year ago, we...
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Matrix multiplication doesn’t work like that
Earlier this week I posted a matrix multiplication worksheet on Mastodon. If you do some of these, you might spot what’s funny about them. For example. \[ \Large \begin{bmatrix}\color{navy}{4} &...
View ArticlePrime-generating functions
A few weeks ago I heard someone casually refer to ‘that formula of Euler’s that generates primes’. I hadn’t heard of this, but it turns out that in 1772 Euler produced this formula: \[ f(x) = x^2 + x...
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ChatGPT and history of maths misconceptions
You know how loads of things in maths are named for the wrong person? In 1996, a fun quiz appeared in The Mathematical Gazette based on history of maths misconceptions. It contained a series of...
View ArticlePrimes, reversals and concatenations
In the last Finite Group livestream, Katie told us about emirps. If a number p is prime, and reversing its digits is also prime, the reversal is an emirp (‘prime’ backwards, geddit?). For example, 13,...
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Announcing The Finite Group
“Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a place where maths people could hang out and create cool maths things?” This idea was put to me a couple of years ago, and has stuck with me. It does sound nice....
View ArticleMathematical modelling and sustainability
I was interviewed by Nira Chamberlain, President of the Mathematical Association. I am the twelfth person to whom he has asked his question “what is the point of mathematics?” Hoping to offer...
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A visit to The Mathematikum in Giessen
My son and I visited The Mathematikum in Giessen. This is well worth a visit, we did it as a day trip by train from holiday in Frankfurt, which worked well because the museum is close to the railway...
View ArticleBouton numbers: a new integer sequence
In the 1901 paper that named the game Nim and provided its mathematical analysis, Charles Bouton defined “safe combinations”, positions that if you leave the game in this state, your opponent cannot...
View Article27 tickets that guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery – but what prize?
The recent preprint ‘You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery‘ by David Cushing and David I. Stewart presents a list of 27 lottery tickets which will guarantee to match at...
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Shoes and partition numbers: a developing mathematical mind wanders
Does this picture make you think of Srinvasa Ramanujan? I’m always fascinated by the pace and range of little conversations with my seven-year-old son that wander in and out of maths. Let me tell you...
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Twitter and Mathstodon
Some thinking aloud about what’s happening on social media in my world, I hope you don’t mind. Me and Twitter I joined Twitter in February 2009, having considered doing so for about a year. I wrote on...
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