When I prepare for the Math/Maths Podcast I make some notes on each story so I have quick access to the key information when talking to Samuel Hansen. As an experiment, I have tried to tidy these up and place them here in my Math/Maths notebook.
Math/Maths Podcast: Peter Rowlett in the UK talks to Samuel Hansen in the US about news & current affairs.
My main blog, Travels in a Mathematical World.
The industry and technology that surrounds us owes a great debt to modern mathematics research, yet this fact is perfectly hidden in its physical manifestation. The concern with this state of affairs is that what is unknown cannot be appreciated or valued.
Early day motions (EDMs) are tabled by MPs to publicise a particular event or cause, and to gather support among MPs for that event or cause. MPs demonstrate their support for an EDM by signing the motion.Gordon Brown issued a Government apology in 2009 for the way Turing was treated following a conviction of gross indecency in 1952. A pardon would go further. In his blog post, John Leech reports that the EDM is "prompted by a petition on the Downing Street web page". This e-petition calls for a pardon to go "some way to healing" the damage caused by the circumstances of Turing's death, in recognition of the work Turing did, and to "act as an apology to many of the other gay men, not as well known as Alan Turing, who were subjected to these laws".
aim to bridge the communication gap between scientists and journalists and give space for a dialogue between the two. They reflect the British Science Association's commitment to increasing the accessibility of the sciences and providing opportunities for discussion and debate. The Media Fellowships aim to give scientists and their colleagues, the confidence and willingness to engage with the media and tackle issues of mistrust and misrepresentation and to give journalists access to new scientific expertise.If this sounds interesting, you'll be pleased to hear the call for 2012 BSA Media Fellows is now open. These are for fellowships lasting between 3-7 weeks during July to September 2012. Applications close at midnight on 11 March 2012. You can read lots about the scheme, tips on applying and apply online via the BSA website.
The Media Fellowship scheme is the only one of it's kind in the UK.
a couple of weeks of location data on an individual, combined with location data from their two most sharing friends, is enough to place that person within a 100-metre radius with 77 per cent accuracy. That rises to nearly 85 per cent when you combine information from nine friends. Even someone who has never shared their location can be pinpointed with 47 per cent accuracy from information available from two friends, rising to 57 per cent with nine.New Scientist mentions the obvious privacy concerns and point out some potential benefits in epidemiology, or to find nearby friends in case of a suicide attempt. It is worth reading the whole article, the rest of which discusses how a system might identify someone - or not - through their ability to identify photos of their friends, and a new programming system developed at MIT that "automatically enforces privacy policies".
This week Samuel and Peter spoke about: Pac-Man is NP-Hard; How to learn to love maths; The Gender Gap in Maths; The Mathematician's Shirts photos; Algorithmic Education; Mathematics World UK Launch; Neighbourly Advice; Vision for science and mathematics education 5–19; Approximating the Hilbert Curve with 3-D Printers; Elsevier & The Cost of Knowledge revisited; Turing Centenary Events; Science Sparring Society's First Fight.Download this and find out how to subscribe over at pulse-project.org.
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| Pac Man Cross Stitch by Everyspoon, on Flickr |
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| Photo by Colin Smith at the Geograph Britain and Ireland project. |
Although most well-known for his work at Bletchley Park in the pioneering days which saw the birth of modern practical computing ... Turing did fundamental research on Artificial Intelligence, Computer Programming and even Mathematical Biology. This weekend attempts a rounded view of a polymath, one of the great mathematicians of the twentieth century, his life and his times. We will have a number of very distinguished speakers who have themselves researched in some of the areas that Turing pioneered but our aim is an accessible and informative account of Turing's multifarious achievements.A programme for Turing's Worlds is online now. These events fit into a wide programme of events this year for the centenary of Turing's birth, and a substantial list is maintained by the Alan Turing Year website.
The first work that visitors to the exhibitions will see, even before entering the exhibition, is The Mathematician’s Shirts: a display consisting of a series of shirts cut and tied into knots and scrawled with complex formulas.Also available is the project blog, which describes some of how the process worked, and a Flickr group with further photos of the exhibit.
Our Centre will present mathematical objects and mathematical thinking... presenting in attractive and exciting ways the geniuses and discoverers, the discoveries and their applications, the lives of the mathematicians, and the culture, arts, fashion and politics of their time. All aspects of maths will be represented, from the playful abstract aspect of maths as experienced in games to the serious significance of maths in every aspect of our lives from huge engineering projects to helping fight cancer.A fundraising campaign has now been launched. Geoff Wain, campaign organiser, said,
Apart from the indispensible and indisputable usefulness of mathematics in society it is also supremely important in the history of civilisation. Mathematics as a body of knowledge, painstakingly built over millennia, ranks as one of the great creative achievements of the human race. And we hope this new initiative will capture the public imagination.Source: Mathematics World UK - Press release (26th January 2012).
