The Aperiodical

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. Here are some links to the things we referred to, along with some further reading. Since we found so many nonsense formula stories, I’ll split the links into two sections: nonsense and the rest. Nonsense formula stories Flipping clever! Formula for the perfect pancake revealed by maths boffins (but we’ll still end up with ours stuck to the ceiling) – Daily Mail (2013) The perfect pancake? Easy, just follow this formula … 100 – [10L – 7F + C(k – C) + T(m – T)]/(S – E) – Daily Mail (2009); the one with the amazing stock photo Formula for perfect pancake unveiled by scientists – The Telegraph (2009) How to toss the perfect pancake – Daily Express; the one without the actual formula The perfect pancake toss – Shortlist; includes the formula Why today’s the perfect day to change your life – Daily Mail Revealed: The formula for a perfect family Christmas – drink two parts wine for every three chocolates – Daily Mail Scientists are serious about having a laugh – The Telegraph Scientists reveal formula for the perfect sitcom – The Telegraph Horror’s perfect formula – London Evening Standard; the one where “blood and guts” = $\sin x$. Here’s my happy marriage secret: avoid romance – The Telegraph The formula for perfect parking  – NPR The rest The geometry of perfect parking – Simon Blackburn; PDF The Tommy Westphall universe Jewish Problems – Tanya Khovanova’s collection of Russian “coffin” problems on the arXiv, including number 1’s quickly-read puzzle. Mathematical Puzzles, a Connoisseur’s Collection, by Peter Winkler The Muddy Children: a logic for public announcement – slides by Jesse Hughes CP’s Interesting Esoterica collection Number 3 will appear in exactly 9 days. You can probably guess what it’ll be about. But can you guess who we’ll be talking to? You can subscribe to All Squared through our RSS feed. We’ll set up an iTunes thing if anyone asks for it.

We’ve been quietly making plans and gathering material for a new project over the past couple of weeks, after noticing that there’s an unusual paucity of maths podcasts at the moment. Well, that exciting new project is now happening, and it’s a half-hour podcast featuring maths, guests, puzzles and links from the internet. It’s called All Squared, and it’ll contain cringe-inducing intro/ending contrivances, interesting guest interviews on topical and other subjects, and a panoply of mathematical curiosities. This is the first number of the podcast (we thought ‘episode’ would set unrealistic expectations of regularity, and we can never resist a pun). It includes an interview with Edmund Harriss about spoken mathematics, as well as a puzzle which we’ll give the answer to in the next number, and a great mathematical flash game to keep you occupied until that appears. Here are some links to the things we referred to, along with some further reading: Mathematics Out Loud at Maxwell’s Demon, Edmund’s blog Milton’s Paradise Lost (Project Gutenberg ebook version) The Pythagorean Proposition, a book containing nearly 370 proofs The proof of Pythagoras’ theorem that Katie gave Pythagorean Theorem poem Maths Poetry at Mr P’s Maths Page Gunfight at the cubic corral – Thony Christie on Cardano, Tartaglia and 16th Century maths competitions The same topic at The Story of Mathematics CP’s proof without words on YouTube Edmund says Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups by John Conway is particularly readable. Z-Rox, the dimensionally deficient game, at Kongregate Number 2 (or should it be 4?) will appear soonish.

Two days late, because that is the way we rotate here, it’s another episode of our sporadic navel-gazing podcast. In this episode we talked about: Our piece on the Invariant Subspace Problem (and the more recent news) Log-log! Who’s there? Not a power law! Our coverage of the new Mersenne Prime news, and our meta-coverage of everyone else’s coverage of it The good, the bad, and Gowers Interesting comments discussion on the ‘What is a mathematician’ post The first in Katie’s series of Open Season posts, on Singmaster’s Conjecture Please consider hosting the Carnival of Mathematics Mysterious upcoming project – watch this space As always, we’re keen to hear about your mathematical exploits either by email to root@aperiodical.com or through our new, streamlined sending-something-in form.

After two months we’ve finally done another podcast! We completely forgot even the most rudimentary things about how to do a podcast. Sorry. In this episode, we talked about: Mathematical Christmas cracker jokes Fractal Christmas trees Posts from MathsJam speakers – Tom Button on Radii of Polyhedra and Phil Harvey on AS Results and Batting Averages The Aperiodical’s Mathematical Survey Carnival of Mathematics 94 As always, we’re keen to hear about your mathematical exploits either by email to root@aperiodical.com or through our new, streamlined sending-something-in form. If you’ve got some ideas for how we can do a better podcast, we’d be particularly keen to hear from you.

We took the opportunity of us all being in the same small slice of space and time (MathsJam, last weekend) to record another episode of our continuing audio part-work, The Aperiodcast. We talked about: Christian’s Recreational Maths Seminar Dara O Briain: School of Hard Sums to return; maths students sought to take part Matt Parker’s Twitter Puzzle – 12th Nov John McKenna’s helpful comment about our title font As always, we’re keen to hear about your mathematical exploits either by email at root@aperiodical.com, our twitter @aperiodical, or whatever means you can think of to get in contact with us.

Here’s another episode of our irregular podcast about what’s been happening on the site. This time, we talked about: Advances in pure nonsense Robert Schneider, Mathematical Musician/Musical Mathematician #MTT2K: Teachers critique Khan Academy Surds: what are they good for? Calculus of the Nervous System The new fonts on the site Christian’s new Aperiodical Round Up and Interesting Esoterica Summation Puzzlebomb October 2012 Christian apologises for the poor sound quality, an unavoidable consequence of being at the family home for the weekend without a proper microphone. As always, we’re keen to hear about your mathematical exploits either by email at root@aperiodical.com, our twitter @aperiodical, or whatever means you can think of to get in contact with us.

Leaves are falling, a chilly wind is blowing and I can hear the distant thunder of undergrads’ hooves as they stampede towards my department. Yes, Summer is giving way to Autumn, so it’s time for another Aperiodcast. If you had “42 days” in the “when will the next Aperiodcast appear” sweepstake, report to the comments section below for your prize. In this episode Peter and Christian were enjoying the comforts of their respective homes, while Katie was preparing to be sawn in half by a crazed Matt Parker at the British Science Festival. We talked about: Bill Thurston has died A glider on an aperiodic cellular automaton exists! (and the alternative  glider Tim Hutton posted on Google+) Knitty spiked icosahedron Puzzlebomb – September 2012 Matt Parker needs help building a domino computer As always, we’re keen to hear about your mathematical exploits at root@aperiodical.com, and you still have eight days to submit items for the 90th Carnival of Mathematics, which you can do through our form.

Here’s the fifth Aperiodcast, covering what’s happened on the site basically since the start of Summer. Peter is busy doing work, so it was just Katie and me blathering on about a variety of things. The posts discussed in this episode were: Telegraph’s open letter to Michael Gove and Vince Cable on numeracy (presented with arithmetic errors), by Peter More and Less, by Paul Taylor Interesting Esoterica Summation volume 4, by Christian Turing Round Up Open Access Round Up MathsJam Annual Conference 2012 booking now open An answer to what Shouryya Ray’s ‘unsolved Newton problem’ was π vs τ: FOTSN/Tau Day special by Steve Mould and Matt Parker Carnival of Mathematics 88 Dance Your PhD: Cutting Sequences on the Double Pentagon by Katie You have three days to submit posts for the next Carnival of Maths, hosted here by Katie.

Here’s another Aperiodcast, covering things that happened on the site between the 4th and the 20th of June. Posts discussed in this episode Ask a mathematician: “Where should we live?” by Alistair Bird The mathematics examinations faced by school leavers in the Republic of Ireland by Colm Mulcahy P-Value Extravaganza posted by Christian The Super Subtraction Feat by Colin Beveridge Take part! Writing for The Aperiodical Send in good new research Submit an article to the Carnival of Maths

After an unexpectedly long wait of over three weeks, here’s the third Aperiodcast, discussing what’s happened on the site between 13/5/2012 and 3/6/2012. You’ll notice that we recorded this podcast four days ago – we were all having too much jubilee fun to find time to upload it! Anyway, we had lots to talk about, so please do have a listen. Posts discussed in this episode: Has schoolboy genius solved problems that baffled mathematicians for centuries? by Christian and Peter The Table Never Lies by Mr. Gregg Puzzlebomb – June 2012 by Katie In what flipping dimension is a square peg in a round hole just as good as a round peg in a square hole? by Card Colm The strange case of Misha Verbitsky and the trademarked beard by Christian P-p-p-publicise a paper! by Christian and Nathan Aperiodical Round Up 6 – It glides to a stop as it reaches the end of the power stroke by Christian Open Access Update – 25th of May by Christian