The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything?

Precision: The Measure of All Things

Professor Marcus du Sautoy - who is effectively a numerical evangelist, as well as a master storyteller - once again takes an unappetising premise and turns it into educational gold. 

'Precision: The Measure of All Things' explores humanity's obsession with compartmentalising the environment into ever-more-precise units of measurement - from the first cave paintings of the Cro-Magnons, to today's atomic clocks. In the first edition, du Sautoy charts the history of the metre and the second, and examines scientists' continuing efforts to redefine how time and length are quantified.

To find out more about the series, follow this link.

More Maths

School of Hard Sums

If you're not watching this, you should be.

Dara O Briain on the importance of Maths:

“Maths is the language in which the universe is written. It’s innate to the human brain and is a spectacular thing that we’ve discovered/invented. Also it permeates our lives. If you have to discuss something in terms of its utility, we’re moving increasingly to being a technological society and therefore you need to be conversant with it. But in all honesty, I am over discussing things in terms of their utility, as if education is just training for jobs – it isn’t.

"I encounter the same argument in teaching obscure languages: it fires neurons in different ways, helps you with problems. The example I quote is if people really understood probability, they’d save a lot of money on lottery tickets.”

Happy Pi Day!

Did you know that today - 14 March - is Pi Day, an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi)?

"Why's that?" I hear you ask.

Well, it's because 14 March is 3/14 (in the confusing, American-favoured month/day date format), and 3, 1 and 4 are the three most significant digits of π in the decimal form. That's why.

To find out more about Pi Day, follow this link. And to mark Pi Day, why not buy yourself a T-shirt? :-)

Larry Shaw - a.k.a. the Prince of Pi - the organiser of the very first Pi Day. What a guy!

(At least now we know the answer to the question, "Who ate all the Pi?")

 

The Wife of Pi

Pumpkin Pi

If you pay peanuts...

Cookie Maths

What happened when MPs took a maths exam

Most of them hadn't got a clue what they were doing, that's what!

You can read the full story here.

I wonder what the probability is of them being re-elected?

There really is no excuse for Labour MPs being so bad at Maths, especially after I stood outside the Department for Children, Schools and Families giving away copies of Match Wits With the Kids back when they were still in power.

If your Maths is a little shaky, you can pick up your copy of Match Wits With the Kids: A Little Learning For All the Family here.

Monday Morning Maths

That's just how I roll, baby

The Counting Song

Call me an old cynic, but I love this.

"Some Infinities are bigger than others." What?!?

The Truth About Subtraction

Today's Maths Lesson - Pie Charts

Fibonacci and the Mathematics of Mother Nature

Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (c. 1170 – c. 1250) also known as Leonardo Fibonacci, or, most commonly, simply Fibonacci, was an Italian mathematician, considered by some to be the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages.

Fibonacci is best known to the modern world for spreading the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Europe, primarily through the publication in the early 13th century of his Book of Calculation, or the Liber Abaci; and for a number sequence named after him known as the Fibonacci numbers.

Now the Fibonacci sequence is something rather amazing and appears again and again in nature. If you want to know more, watch the following (almost as amazing) videos.

Six small Maths errors that caused HUGE disasters

If there are any children are reading this, there's one thing you need to know about Maths in the real world.

If you make one tiny mistake, people will die.

Don't believe me? Then check out these six examples of apparently completely forgivable design calculation errors that cost lives.

Match Wits with the Kids - new review

I was delighted to stumble across this review of Match Wits with the Kids on the Internet the other day. It's written by a Maths specialist and, as a result, I found what the reviewer had to say especially pleasing.

This book is subtitled “a little learning for all the family” which is an incredible understatement. This book is just packed with interesting information about a variety of subjects - not just Mathematics but also English, Science, History, Geography, MFL, Classics - and even some tests to keep the reader on their toes.

In just 50 pages of mathematics the reader is transported along a journey from numbers through tables, negatives, indices, fractions, decimals, percentages, Fibonacci, algebra, angles, symmetry, triangles, pythagoras, quadrilaterals, polygons, circles, 3D shapes, co-ordinates, statistics and finally probability. The style is gripping, fun and very informative. It is hard to put down - but also manages to be a book that a minutes reading leaves the reader bursting with new facts and information.

This is a wonderful reference book for all the family - perhaps especially useful for parents worried their children know more than they do! I can’t judge the other subjects (though I’m hooked and mesmerised by the other chapters) but mathematically I can find no fault - the material would cover most of the content of the Key Stage Three syllabus. This is an excellent book - one that no family should be without.

To read the review at the Association of Teachers of Mathematics website, click here.

And while we're at it there's also this one at Suite101.com.

Experienced teacher and author Jonathon Green has written the perfect companion for parents who wish to brush up on their general knowledge. Match Wits with the Kids (Icon, 2008) contains 392 pages of charts, maps, formulae, diagrams, tables, information and practice tests to revise the important facts across nine subject areas...

In the years between attending school and parenting a school-aged child many facts and details well-known during school years go astray. Now is the perfect time to brush up on some basic general knowledge, if for no other reason than to assist children with their homework and improve results at the next trivia night or general knowledge quiz show.

To Infinity... and Beyond!

Do you know what this is?


No, it's not a drunken number 8, it is, in fact, the symbol for infinity.

Last night's Horizon (BBC 2, 9.00pm) dealt with the concept of infinity - and what a concept it is!

Infinity (symbolically represented by ∞) is a concept in mathematics and philosophy that refers to a quantity without bound or end. (The word comes from the Latin infinitas, meaning 'unboundedness'.) People have developed various ideas throughout history about the nature of infinity. In mathematics, infinity is defined in the context of set theory.

In mathematics, 'infinity' is often used in contexts where it is treated as if it were a number (i.e., it counts or measures things: 'an infinite number of terms'), even though it is not really a number. Oh and there's more than one kind of infinity.

Confused yet? Me too.

So you might want to sit back and watch Horizon's attempt to unravel the mysteries of the infinite. It's is older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction, and it's on BBC iPlayer here.