Blackboards

Tuesday 14 March 2006 at 12:58 pm | In Articles | 1 Comment
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Thanks to Gooseania (who got it from Blog of a Math Teacher) for linking to The Sarong Theorem Archive. Just shows that blackboards still exist; they have completely vanished from FE and schools in the UK to be replaced by whiteboards or smartboards.

The problem is that whiteboards need regular proper cleaning and decent pens; smartboards are useless for maths since they are usually far too small and are too dependent on technology. I don’t miss the chalk dust but there’s little to beat a decent blackboard for flexibility.

Proof

Wednesday 15 February 2006 at 6:58 pm | In Articles | 3 Comments
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For a mathematician’s (Marcus du Sautoy) view of the recently released film Proof have a look at Another view. The film was not given a good review by the critics that I have read.

The Art of Justin Mullins – Beautiful Equations

Wednesday 1 February 2006 at 12:46 pm | In Articles | 1 Comment
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Justin Mullins frames beautiful equations – you can see them on his site www.justinmullins.com and in his exhibition in Highgate in London from now until 12th February. No prizes for guessing which equation takes pride of place!

The Guardian reports this exhibition at Mathematician defines beauty in new exhibition.

Goldbach and Lewis

Tuesday 31 January 2006 at 9:41 pm | In Articles | 1 Comment
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It’s not often that mathematics makes an appearance on British TV so I was suprised to see it in Lewis, ITV’s follow up to the Inspector Morse series (see for example Lewis, and the Ghost of Inspector Morse and Newsnight Review).

Oxford University often appeared in the Morse programmes and this time in Lewis it featured a very bright student who had shown that a Fields’ medallist work on the Goldbach Conjecture was flawed, leading to all sorts of murders. Along the way we were shown what a perfect number was, as perfect numbers were used for passwords.

It’s a pity that the mathematics shown on one of the whiteboards was elementary coordinate geometry :). The programme showed how much passion mathematics can arouse, though I wouldn’t have thought it has ever lead to murder!

Mathematics Today Article – Maths Blogs

Monday 30 January 2006 at 12:52 pm | In Articles | Post Comment
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Craig Laughton, aka Gooseania, has written an article about mathematics blogs in Mathematics Today. Do go to his blog Exploring the blogosphere and read the article and provide the feedback and discussion he asks for.

Cubics

Thursday 26 January 2006 at 9:26 pm | In Articles | 1 Comment
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