Double Maths First Thing: Issue 14

DMFT probably needs wider margins.

Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread the joy and delight in how everything fits together.

Straight into the links this week!

A mini-theme: going back in time

My link collection has a lot of retro content this week, so let’s get them all out of the way at once.

Mair (who I know from the Finite Group discord) looked at last week‘s retrocomputing link and sent me to this: someone figured out that in Super Mario 64, you can (or a simulator can) cause a log to move through stone. Neat.

Perhaps — and I don’t mean to typecast DMFT readers, but I’d say this is more likely for you than for a random subset of the population — you have a working BBC Micro or access to an emulator. This is, I am told, an entirely unsuitable machine for generating fractals. David Given says “I’m going to do it anyway.”.

Calculators have been around for about as long as I have. I’m sure (typecasting again) you’ve frequently picked up an ancient one and thought “I wonder what chip this machine uses?” Here is a guide to help you figure it out. I note that it was written in 2000, so it qualifies as retro in two different ways.

Before even the calculator — if you can imagine such a time! — there were slide rules. I own several. They’re great. Here is a site that generates practice problems.

Recent and upcoming

Dr Brigitte Stenhouse has been on the radio talking about Mary Somerville — this is very much on my to-listen list, especially since long walks with the dog mean that I’m running out of podcasts.

There’s a Finite Group livestream tomorrow (Thursday January 23rd, 3pm GMT), so you should definitely throw them the price of a pint once a month to watch and interact live (or just watch on the recording). They’re doing something crafty.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have friends and/or colleagues who would enjoy Double Maths First Thing, do send them the link to sign up — they’ll be very welcome here.

If you’ve missed the previous issues of DMFT or — somehow — this one, you can find the archive courtesy of my dear friends at the Aperiodical.

Meanwhile, if there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something you want to tell me.

Until next time,

C