Monthly Archives: May 2012

Maths in the British Science Festival

Posted on May 31, 2012 by strathmaths

The annual British Science Festival will be taking place this year in Aberdeen, from 4–9 September. The Edinburgh Mathematical Society, who are among the sponsors, have picked out a few mathematically-themed events which might be of particular interest to our … Continue reading →

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Proving a pint

Posted on May 29, 2012 by strathmaths

The BBC News website today reports a further contribution to that perennially popular topic, the mathematics of food and drink. Specifically, a group of researchers from the University of Limerick have produced a study that claims to settle the question … Continue reading →

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Quotation for the week: Aristotle

Posted on May 28, 2012 by strathmaths

A quotation this week from the great Greek philosopher Aristotle, with a sting in the tail concerning mathematicians who try to push their luck outwith mathematics: … when the subject and the basis of a discussion consist of matters that hold good only as … Continue reading →

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Going underground

Posted on May 22, 2012 by strathmaths

You may have spotted a recent article on the BBC News website reporting research that analysed the structure of subway networks from a mathematical point of view. In Glasgow, we have one of the oldest but also one of the … Continue reading →

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Quotation for the week: Dee

Posted on May 21, 2012 by strathmaths

Dr John Dee is one of the most perplexing figures of the Elizabethan period: a classical scholar, a mystic and astrologer, and a mathematician — not a combination we’re used to seeing today. For Dee, as for many of his … Continue reading →

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Quotation for the week: Shimura

Posted on May 14, 2012 by strathmaths

The Japanese mathematician Goro Shimura is best known for his work with Yutaka Taniyama, in particular the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture, the (partial) proof of which by Andrew Wiles also supplied the proof of Fermat’s last theorem. In an interview (exerpted in … Continue reading →

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Engineers’ induction and the Borwein integral

Posted on May 9, 2012 by strathmaths

You’re probably already familiar with the story about the mathematician who tries to explain proof by induction to two friends: a physicist and an engineer. After some deep thought, the engineer announces that he’s found a proof by induction that … Continue reading →

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Quotation for the week: Arnold

Posted on May 7, 2012 by strathmaths

The text of a 1997 address “On teaching mathematics”, by the great Russian mathematician V. I. Arnold who died in 2010, opens with a provocative statement: Mathematics is a part of physics. Physics is an experimental science, a part of … Continue reading →

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Garbage in, garbage out: follow-ups

Posted on May 4, 2012 by strathmaths

Having read my review of the book Useless Arithmetic, my co-blogger Michael Grinfeld has suggested I may still display too much faith in mathematical modelling. At his suggestion, here are a couple of links which might encourage further scepticism…

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Mathematical maturity

Posted on May 3, 2012 by strathmaths

I started my academic life as a biologist, and when I switched to mathematics, nothing annoyed me in my new chosen discipline more than the expressions “we will start from scratch”, which still fills me with foreboding, and “mathematical maturity”, … Continue reading →

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