Double Maths First Thing: Issue 1A

DMFT is six months old! It’ll probably be walking soon.

Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread joy and delight in doing maths, for any reason or for none.

I have taken on a slightly silly, but at the same time DEADLY SERIOUS challenge to become good enough at blindfolded solving to take part in a competition in May in Weston-super-Mare (twinned, according to Moose Allain, with Champion the Wonder Horse). If you want to follow my progress, follow this link to Mathstodon.

I also ran the past month’s Carnival of Mathematics — they’re always on the lookout for new hosts, so do follow the instructions if you have some sort of maths blog and would be willing to host.

Links

A very easy first link this week, especially for a folk-topologist: when rivers end up in different watersheds. (A folk-topologist just needs three dimensions and a proof.)

Filed under “things I never knew existed and NOW I NEED TO HAVE”: a pop-up Elements of Euclid. If it goes missing from the Smithsonian, I trust you’ll be able to provide me with an alibi.

You know what else is cool? Quaternions are cool. Jason Fantl has a post explaining how to derive them, and I hope to have time to read it (rather than just look at the pictures) soon.

Possibly even cooler than quaternions is mathematical art, and Fractal Kitty is one of the top exponents (see what I did there?) of it. I enjoyed this post about colouring circles on a path.

Finally, exploring new concepts in paper structure, here is a choose-your-own-adventure exploration of parking functions.

Currently

I don’t BlueSky, but one doesn’t need to to see the #MathArtMarch challenge prompts and responses that Ayliean is currently organising. Join in! Catch up if you want to! Dip in and out if you prefer!

On Thursday March 6th (tomorrow, if you’re reading this the day it’s released), Dr Jamie Gallagher is giving a free online talk about science engagement at 2pm.

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