MathsJam Gathering 2016
This is a list of talks given at the 2016 MathsJam Weekend, along with a brief description and slides where we have them. There's also a Songbook of words from the MathsJamJam which happened in 2016.
The gathering took place on 12th-13th November 2016.
Saturday
Session 1a : 14:15 - 15:02
Welcome to the MathsJam, 2016 - Colin Wright
Constructions with Obstructions - Colin Wright
Description
Name That Polynomial - David Bedford
David has devised a method to work out what polynomial you're thinking of, given only the knowledge that it's in a certain form and its value at two points.
More than one way to skin a cat - Alison Kiddle
Description
Bills of Mortality - Martyn Parker
Martyn's found some old lists of how and why people died, and is sharing it as an example of some amusing statistics.
Session 1b : 15:25 - 16:12
Everything Old is New Again, Again - Adam Atkinson
Adam has discovered a story which involves some people misunderstanding how gravity works, and shares it with us as a cautionary tale.
Factorising A Large Semiprime When The Person Who Supplied It Has Been A Bit Careless - Phil Ramsden
At Imperial, I run the First Year Mathematical Computation course. Each year, there's a coursework task on RSA ciphers, which involves using my public key to send messages, and making one of your own to receive them. If you can factorise my N, you get 100%, even if you get everything else wrong. But there's a catch: if I factorise yours, you pay a 5% penalty. I'm not a cryptanalyst or a number theorist, and I don't own a supercomputer. I have no more than a few minutes to spend attacking any one student's N. But I'm sneaky, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Just between ourselves, I'd like to share a few of them.
Wau - a constant more important than e or pi!!! - Derek Couzens
Description
Is there a perfect maths font? - Adam Townsend
Description
Mathematical Toddler Toys - Peter Rowlett
Peter has been trying to find mathematical toys for his small human, including a Hoberman Sphere, and a selection of good books including Julia Donaldson's Monkey Puzzle.
A mathematical card trick from Moscow's Olympiads - Jorge Nuno Silva
Description
Session 1c : 16:35- 17:22
Jonathan Histed - Boomerangs
Description
Kathryn Taylor - Lucky Numbers
Description
Martin Owen - More effective strategies for experimenting
Description
Rogerio Martins - The (not so simple!) chain fountain
Description
Tarim - What is real?
Description
Session 1d : 17:45 - 18:32
John Bibby - World Maths Year & the need for more maths t-shirts
Description
Michael Gibson - Guess Who missed a trick! (Turn and face the ternary)
Description
Ben Sparks - Eine kleine Mathmusik
Description
Sunday
Session 2a : 08:50 - 09:37
Callum Mulligan - Art and Mathematics: A tale of logic and creativity
Description
Robert Low - Arithmetic for the (three-fingered) mathematicia
Description
Session 2b : 10:00 - 10:47
Gina Worth - Spirolaterals, maybe with a bit of time travel
Description
Nicholas Korpelainen - Alice and Bob eat some pizza
Description
Katie Steckles - Spreadsheet on my phone/Multiples of nine
Description
Session 2c : 11:15 - 11:48
Noel France - Pillow Problem 49 and a cube of cheese
Description
Session 2d : 12:06 - 12:39
Joel Haddley - How Many Pizzas?
Description
David Singmaster - The Problems of Abbot Albert, 13C
Description
Colin Beveridge - On the Chalkdust Crossnumber, straight lines, and projective geometry
Description
More Detailed Abstracts
These are in the order talks were proposed, so you may need to use a search function to find the one you're looking for.
Checkboards, Euler, and non-crossing paths - Colin Wright
Constructions with Obstructions - Colin Wright
Everything Old is New Again, Again - Adam Atkinson
There are certain problems/stories/jokes which should be part of the shared cultural heritage of etc. etc. But if we all assume we all know these stories etc., people risk falling through the cracks. And that would never do. As a public service I shall just make sure that one of the stories that should be universally known is, at least among MathsJam attendees. 2 years ago: the right angle proof. This year, something equally vital. I only learned recently that our own Matt and Katie didn't know it, and can only blame myself.
2A: A clever horse - theory and applications - Christian Lawson-Perfect
In short, I taught a tiny horse to count.
Things to do with chains - Adam Atkinson
I went to a talk about chains in 1984. It was about a problem I've not run into since and might be of interest.
Pillow Problem 49 and a cube of cheese - Noel France
Factorising A Large Semiprime When The Person Who Supplied It Has Been A Bit Careless - Phil Ramsden
At Imperial, I run the First Year Mathematical Computation course. Each year, there's a coursework task on RSA ciphers, which involves using my public key to send messages, and making one of your own to receive them. If you can factorise my N, you get 100%, even if you get everything else wrong. But there's a catch: if I factorise yours, you pay a 5% penalty. I'm not a cryptanalyst or a number theorist, and I don't own a supercomputer. I have no more than a few minutes to spend attacking any one student's N. But I'm sneaky, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Just between ourselves, I'd like to share a few of them.
How Many Pizzas? - Joel Haddley
Monohedral disk tilings, like pizzas, come in many flavours. Some flavours allow for retilings with interesting combinatorial properties.
Binary numbers: a suggested improvement - Paul Taylor
TV Game Shows - michael fletcher
How does/should the banker make his offers in 'Deal or No Deal'?
More than one way to skin a cat - Alison Kiddle
I spend much of my time thinking about how students solve problems, and how to help them become better problem solvers. I will share a couple of problems and invite you to find at least one way to solve them. No cats will be harmed.
Three Compartment Modelling in Distribution of Drug - Ratnesh
For physicians renal diseases has been a cause of concern since a very long time.
MENACE - Matthew Scroggs
In 1961, Donald Michie build MENACE (the Machine Educable Noughts And Crosses Engine), a machine built from matchboxes and beads that was able to learn how to play noughts and crosses. In this talk I will explain how it is possible to make matchboxes learn and I will show off the copy of Michie's machine that I have built.
Mathematical Toddler Toys - Peter Rowlett
What is real? - Tarim
Real numbers lead to some interesting, and somewhat counter-intuitive, ideas. An attempt to show that real numbers may have less to do with reality than you thought.
Matt talks about a thing - Matt Parker
Matt Parker will talk about a thing he found on the 8 April 2016, which has the SHA-1 hash 475301fd3b5d2ba37ebb6be33f5376d7529a3f67
More effective strategies for experimenting - Martin Owen
How do we explore how to make the perfect piece of toast or pour the perfect pint of beer?
Some bit of interesting maths unearthed from somewhere - Liz
In a break from tradition I shall attempt to find an interesting bit of maths that has been dug up from somewhere that is not Egyptian. It's bound to prove that abstract maths has been interesting people since they needed to count the rocks they were banging together.
My current favourite number - Colin Beveridge
Going round in circles... - Kathy Cohen
Taking a familair sequence and applying modulo arithmetic produces interesting results.
Bills of Mortality - Martyn Parker
Wau - a constant more important than e or pi !!! - Derek Couzens
Alex Elmsley and the Hamming Code - Tony Mann
At around the same time as Richard Hamming was exploring his error-correcting codes, the mathematical magician Alex Elmsley came up with a similar idea in one of his mind-reading tricks.
Symmetric Oddities (and Eventies) - Donald Bell
Last year, I presented my 3-4-5 Triangle Symmetry Puzzle, where an ODD number of identical ASYMMETRIC pieces can make a SYMMETRICAL shape. Lots of people liked it.
Big data problems - Noel-Ann Bradshaw
The Puzzle Vault - Daniel Griller
Having spent the last few years searching for and attempting to solve hundreds, if not thousands, of mathematics problems, here I propose to share a few of the gems I have unearthed. These puzzles, in my opinion, represent the standard by which all other problems should be measured. Problem composition is an art form, and as such the presentation will double as a celebration of human creativity.
Moessner's magic - Sue de Pomerai
An interesting pattern in number theory - sadly no magic involved!
Spirolaterals, maybe with a bit of time travel - Gina Worth
Spirolaterals are nice little doodles which throw up some maths/patterns. As for time travel I wanted to show a little of what I read on it for my dissertation in 1998 and to find out if anyone has an update on it.
Let epsilon be 1 - Paul Walter
What happens if you don't believe in real numbers and still try to do calculus and how can you explain integration to 12-year olds.
Arithmetic for the (three-fingered) mathematician - Robert Low
We all learn to do arithmetic in base ten because that's the norm. Many of us learn to do arithmetic in base two because that's how computers do it. Fortunately, there's an alternative which is better than both, and that's what I want to talk about.
Lattice Labyrinth Tessellations - David Mitchell
Lattice labyrinths are a family of infinite families of highly symmetrical monohedral tesselations set out on the square lattice. The bewildering shapes of the polyomino tiles belie the elegant simplicity of their construction. I can generate an LL tessellation for most (sorry, Cantor, I mean "many") number pairs (d,m) where, for instance, d can be the day and m the month of your birthday or mathematics jamboree, while the study of number pairs can lead us into some fun "elementary" (they all say that, but it is) number theory employing the complex plane. As for polyiamonds, that's another story.
Singular Value Decomposition - Michael Borcherds
The story of how Singular Value Decomposition keeps popping up in problems I'm trying to solve
Lucky Numbers - Kathryn Taylor
A mathematical card trick from Moscow's Olympiads - Jorge Nuno Silva
A problem with an interesting story of its own gives rise to a nice mathematical card trick.
The Building Houses Problem - James Grime
My favourite problem I've learnt in the last couple of years.
Solomon Golomb - Alistair Bird
Dactylonomy in 7 ways - Tiago
For MathsJam 6, the 7th meeting of the mathematically inclined person, I intend to show another 500 year old magic trick in seven variants.
Eine kleine Mathmusick - Ben Sparks
Some music may happen
The pigeonhole principle - Phil Harvey
A card trick - and a look at some puzzles that are based on this principle.
World Maths Year & the need for more maths t-shirts - John Bibby
Did World Maths Year 2000 have any lasting impact? Can WMY2020 do better? I am floating ideas and going to try to make it happen. But how?
Numerical frieze patterns - Martin Whitworth
A simple rule generates grids of numbers with a frieze symmetry and an interesting geometrical connection.
The Problems of Abbot Albert, 13C - David Singmaster
something something black rat - Elizabeth A. Williams
I'm working on it. Eek.
Bricks, Plates, and Patterns - Will Kirkby
Code Club and a 'Number' poem - John Read
A brief introduction to the joys of running a Code Club at primary school level (assuming nobody has done this before at MathsJam?), seguing into a fairly daft poem in 72 (or possibly even 512) words.
Art and Mathematics: A tale of logic and creativity. - Callum Mulligan
i have recently worked on a couple of interactive art installations, I will be speaking about the mathematics involved and how this has and is to be applied in a gallery setting.
Guess Who missed a trick! (Turn and face the ternary) - Michael Gibson
Is yours bald? Do they have blue eyes? Do they have a spot on their neck? What do you mean you don't know?!
Name That Polynomial! - David Bedford
Zoe's thing talk - Zoe Griffiths
Really like to do something, but still thinking of something......will update this soon
APs of Perfect squares - Karen Hancock
Fractran - Nicholas Jackson
Fractran is a Turing-complete programming language devised by John Conway, in which programs consist of lists of rational numbers. I'll show some example programs, and try to explain how it works.
A schoolboy's surprise for Professor Tutte - Geoff Morley
Bill Tutte constructed the first 'blemish-free' perfect squared square but missed simpler ways based on what a schoolboy showed him on a blackboard years later.
Alice and Bob eat some pizza - Nicholas Korpelainen
Alice and Bob play a game: they cut a pizza into slices of various sizes, and alternatley choose slices according to a few simple rules. Who is able to eat more pizza?
Solving Quadratics In Your Head - Paul Carson
Using completing the square to find out lots of info about a quadratic equation - what is its minimum? Does it have solutions? What is its transformation? What are the solutions? Using these we can then just write down the solutions in seconds.
Mathematics of matrimony - Sam Headleand
I've recently got engaged and have figured out planning a wedding gives you loads of excuses to do maths. I'll show you a couple of ways how.
Nightingale's nightmare - Noel-Ann Bradshaw
Problems faced by Florence Nightingale when she created her graphs depicting mortality rates and why this is still relevant today.
Spreadsheet on my phone/Multiples of nine - Katie Steckles
I'd like to share some maths I did in a spreadsheet on my phone, while out and about, concerning multiples of nine.
Boomerangs - Jonathan Histed
Big O and little o, a tale of two Os - Andrew Macdonald
How can we classify the complexity of algorithms - declare some some (dis-similar) processes to be equivaliently expensive and others as strictly more or less costly to compute.
Cardioids in Coffee Cups - Dominika Vasilkova
I look at an interesting thing happening (quite literally) right under our noses.