The Mathematical Calender: Maths Jam!

The Mathematical Calender: Maths Jam!

This one is a short and simple post!

Once a month maths enthusiasts from across the UK, and in some of the major cities around the world, can meet up (at a local pub in the UK) to do some maths based puzzles and to just chat to others who like maths.

Puzzle sheets are sent out to the organisers each month and with everybody across the country working on the same set of puzzles it can lead to some fun twitter banter. Of course the puzzle sheets are optional, many people bring their own puzzles and games along or just go along to socialise. Its a fun and informal event with groups in most of the cities in the UK. While the attendance isn't always large the people are all very friendly in my experience. If you are looking for a local place to share your enthusiasm for maths then I'd recommend you check out if there is a nearby maths jam group. If there isn't one nearby you could think of making your own!

The home page is: http://www.mathsjam.com/. The meet ups are normally held on the second to last Tuesday of the month however you can find the exact date for your local group on the website linked, some places do hold their meet ups at different times.

The Mathematical Calender: Maths Week Ireland

The Mathematical Calender: 

Maths Week Ireland

Summary

Maths Week is an annual celebration of mathematics held across the whole of Ireland and is run by a partnership of over 50 groups interested in the promotion of mathematics. It started up in 2006 and has since become the largest celebration of its kind in the entire world and garners a great deal of media attention within Ireland. It is held during the middle of October and will take place from 15th-23rd October for 2016.

Maths Week Ireland: 15th - 23rd October 2016

Students across the breadth of the country have presentations, go on trips, and take part in maths based games, puzzles and challenges in order to showcase the joys of mathematics. While a large percentage of the maths engagement is in the schools this is not to say that there are no wider public activities. There are, for example, the many public lectures held at the universities or similarly a large variety of talks given at cafes, libraries and museums all across the country. In addition to this, Belfast and Dublin hold Maths Week's flagship event called "Maths in the City" where groups of maths enthusiasts take to the streets with games, puzzles and the odd magic trick to entertain the public with mathematics.

The home page for Maths Week can be found at http://www.mathsweek.ie, The site has the latest news on past and present years activities. By simple adding /20XX to this address you can see what events were held during specific years and quite how much the event has grown since it started, For example the site for 2010 (http://www.mathsweek.ie/2010) states that there were 86,266 students signed up for events, last year that figure was 229,034 (http://www.mathsweek.ie/2015).

If you are interested in hosting your own event then you can register it with the site so it can be found more easily. In addition to this the site provides a list of great activities that teachers or event organisers can run making it much easier to get involved.

An Aside

All in all this event will be celebrating its 11th year in 2016 and considering its spectacular growth I can only wonder what it will look like in 5 - 10 years time. It will be interesting to see if other countries try to emulate Ireland and hold their own Maths Week, to my knowledge none have tried yet.

The Mathematical Calender: The European Congress of Mathematics

The Mathematical Calender: 

The European Congress of Mathematics (ECM)

Summary

Starting in 1992, once every four years mathematicians from around the world gather at a major European city in July to spend a few days discussing the latest developments in mathematics.

I have summarised some of what happened at this years ECM in the text below, a comprehensive list of everything that took place can be found on the ECMs homepage. 
http://www.7ecm.de/home.html . That is the site where this information was sourced from.


The European Congress of Mathematics (ECM): Berlin, 18th - 22nd July 2016

Once every four years members of the mathematical community from across Europe gather for the European Mathematical Congress. The broad purpose of this event is to act as a great social and networking event for mathematical professionals whereby the present developments in mathematics can be demonstrated to, and discussed by, a wider audience. Talks are given by invited lecturers on a large range of specialist topics. In addition to the invited lectures, mathematicians from across the world can come and give mini-symposiums (a series of presentations over a two hour time slot) on their areas of expertise.

Given the large number of mathematical professionals present, the congress also serves as fantastic opportunity for the discussion of wider topics outside of research such as the history of mathematics as well as its relation to society. For example, alongside the main course of lectures this year some of the events at this years congress included: discussions around scientific publishing, talks from the association: European Women in Mathematics, and a lecture series on the history of the mathematical development of Berlin.

In association with the ECM, attendees this year also gained free entrance to the new exhibition "Transcending Tradition" curated by the History of Science Working Group at the Goethe University and shown at the Jewish Museum. From the ECMs website:

"The exhibition explores the working lives and activities of Jewish mathematicians in German-speaking countries between the legal and political emancipation of the Jews in the 19th century and their persecution in Nazi Germany. 

It highlights the important role Jewish mathematicians played in all areas of mathematical culture during the German Empire and the Weimarer Republic and recalls their emigration, flight, or death after 1933." 

                                                                             -http://www.7ecm.de/program/cultural_program.html

Other Congresses

While this post is on the European Congress of Mathematics I'd like to conclude it by pointing out that there are many other large regional mathematical congresses across the globe held at regular 3-4 year intervals, such as:

- The Mathematical Congress of the Americas
- The Nordic Congress of Mathematics
- The Latin America Congress of Mathematicians

and

- The International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians

The Mathematical Calender: Ada Lovelace Day

The Mathematical Calendar: Ada Lovelace Day

What is it?

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day to highlight and celebrate the work of women in the STEM fields. It was founded in 2009 when journalist and blogger Suw Charman-Anderson got almost 2,000 people to pledge to blog about a woman in technology that they admire on website pledgebank. The resulting material was so overwhelmingly successful, with blogs, newspaper columns and even comics, that it garnered widespread media coverage and has grown every year since.

When is it?

Early October each year. This year it will be on 11th October.

What to expect?

You can expect to find many videos, articles and podcasts online from both traditional media outlets and bloggers about the achievements of women in STEM fields.

In addition to this there will be events held across the UK, as well as in other countries, in the form of talks or  displays given to a general audience, or workshops specifically aimed at getting women involved in STEM activities.

You can find a list of events that will be happening across the country over at findingada.com, the home page for Ada Lovelace Day. As we are only in July there doesn't seem to be much on there for 2016 yet so have a look closer to the date, and if you are planning on organising an event yourself then you can register it on the website.

Events from previous years:

To give a taste of the large number of events run across the UK here is just some of what was run in 2014, sourced from the findingada archives:

-Partnering with the Royal Institution a live event was run at the RI lecture theatre hosted by a fantastic line-up of female scientists, engineers, television presenters and lecturers all talking about their work. You can find videos of their talks on the RI youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbnrZHfNEDZxXqH9oYqZBH_N5Id6NLkHv

- A pub in Oxford, St Aldates Tavern, hosted an Ada Lovelace Night which saw 6 top female scientists from a diverse range of fields from Epidemiologists to Astrophysicists to Mathematicians chatting about the history of women in  science and about their own work.

- Brighton saw free IT workshops for girls on topics such as computer programming, website design, animation and robotics.

-Universities and museums across the country in places like Liverpool, Edinburgh, Manchester, London and Southampton hosted talks on women in STEM fields.

You can find a large list of these and more in the findingada website event archives where this information was sourced from:

http://findingada.com/archives/

The Royal Institution (The RI), London

The Royal Institution, London (The RI)

Post Summary

Check out the Royal Institutions website, http://www.rigb.org/, for a range of videos on topics relating to mathematics as well as to look out for any future talks that may be of interest. Below is list of the material that can be found on the site with hyperlinks for convenience.

The Royal Institution (The RI)

Back in April this year I traveled down to London to the Royal Institution to attend a lecture titled: "The Extraordinary theorems of John Nash" by the famous mathematician Cedric Villani. The talk lasted just over an hour and went over the various mathematical achievements of John Nash discussing what the basic problems were, the historical context, what he discovered and so what his discoveries meant. The talk was excellent with Villani, a charismatic speaker, making a potentially complex topic easy to understand for the lay person whilst prompting laughs along the way.

Talks like this, on topics in science and mathematics, are run throughout the year at the Institution as it pursues its goal of "harnessing science for the maximum benefit to society". Public engagement ranges from summer schools and masterclasses for students to public talks given by distinguished speakers. 

The purpose of this post was to highlight not only that, around twice year, fantastic talks are given on subjects in mathematics but, since all their talks are recorded, the site is also a great repository of mathematics videos. As the topics don't require the viewer to possess much knowledge about mathematics they are great introductions to its various branches. 

I have found over 16 hours of video on their site. Links to around 14 of those hours can be found below. 5 of these are talks from the last 3 years on a range of topics while the other 9 come from the Christmas lectures run at the Institution each year - there have been 3 years where the topic has been on mathematics and the recordings from two of those years can be found on the site.

Below is a list of the majority of the great material that can be found on the site, with hyperlinks. Have a look on the RI site to find some shorter videos not listed here.

Maths Talks at the RI

Q & A sessions are held after each talk and you can also find videos of these on the website.

Forbidden crystal symmetry in mathematics and architecture - Professor Roger Penrose, 18th September 2013

Our mathematical universe - Professor Max Tegmark, 30th January 2014

Topology, geometry and life in three dimensions - Professor Caroline Series, 28th November 2014

The birth of a theorem - Professor Cédric Villani, 9th March 2015

How not to be wrong: The power of mathematical thinking - Professor Jordan Ellenberg, 1st June 2015

The extraordinary theorems of John Nash - Professor Cédric Villani, 29th April 2016 (No video available yet)

The perfect bet:  How science and maths are taking the luck out of gambling - Professor Adam Kucharski, 1st June 2016 (No video available yet)

Christmas Lectures at the RI on Mathematics

Below are the lecture topics with their respective video length. The RI site gives a detailed description of the content in each video.

Mathematics into pictures, Sir Christopher Zeeman -1978

- Linking and Knotting, 59:57

- Numbers and Geometry, 59:55

- Infinity and Perspective, 60:11

- Games and Evolution, 59:15

- Waves and Music, 55:63

- Castrophe and Pyschology, 60:25

The Magical Maze, Professor Ian Stewart - 1997 (the recordings for these are sadly not available on the RI site)

- Sunflowers and Snowflakes

- The Pattern of Tiny Feet

- Outrageous Fortune

- Chaos and Cauliflowers

- Fearful Symmetry

The Num8er My5teries, Professor Marcus du Sautoy - 2006

- Prime Numbers and Infinity, 39:11

- Shapes in 2, 3 and 4 dimensions. Fractal geometry and infinite length, 39:03

- Applying strategy and logic, 38:46

- Code systems, check digits and error correction, 39:04

- Mechanics, predicting outcomes and chaos theory, 39:13

You can of course find all of these videos by simply navigating from the RI's homepage to their video section. I hope that someone finds these videos as interesting as I did and, if they have the chance, they get to attend one of these in person.

The Mathematical Calender - British Science Week

The Mathematical Calender:

British Science Week

For the fourth entry in my series I will talk about an annual science event held in the UK, British Science Week. I have taken a quote from the organising bodies website to start things off, and I will then follow up with some details.

British Science Week - 11-20 March

"British Science Week is an annual celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths. It is a ten-day programme of STEM events and activities across the UK for people of all ages" 

- https://www.britishscienceweek.org/thinking-about-organising-an-event-read-this/

Begun in 1994 with the aim of encouraging both professional and public engagement with the STEM disciplines, the BSW has only gone from strength to strength. Its run annually in mid march, and this years events will take place from 11-20 March. Last year the British Science Association recorded over 5000 individual events run across Britain, with over 1.5 million participants taking part.

As highlighted in the quote above, British Science Week (BSW) is 10 straight days of events devoted to the celebration and promotion of the STEM disciplines in the UK. Its core feature is that the activities are conceived and then run by members of the public, there is no set programme every year. Those wishing to run an event can register it with the organising body the BSA (British Science Association) who will then advertise the event on their website. They will also provide you with some handy tips on how to run or advertise your event effectively.

Schools, universities, charities, community groups, and both big and small companies, are just some of the people who run events aimed at engaging people of all ages. As there is no set topic or theme organisers are given free reign to present on whatever STEM related subjects they want, as such the events on offer each year are highly varied.

If you're interested in seeing what events are going to be run in your local area (if you live in the UK) then check out the link below! You can search for events by location or by subject matter:

https://www.britishscienceweek.org/

If you know of any events relating to mathematics then I'd love to know, it doesn't matter what county its in just let me know by leaving a comment!

The Mathematical Calender: Pi Day

The Mathematical Calender:

Pi Day

I am back with the third entry in my series. This time I refer not to an academic event but to a day that has been, very slowly, becoming more publicly recognised in recent years: Pi day, the 14th of March.

Pi Day: 14th March

Pi day celebrates the mathematical constant pi, 3.14159.... . As an irrational number its digits go on forever without repeating in any discernible pattern, and its significance comes from being the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter. As such it appears throughout equations in mathematics and science whenever they involve circles, spheres, and by extension curves, in some fashion.

Pi day was first "officially" celebrated in 1988 by the Physicist Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium. The day was celebrated by leading people around in circular patterns or circular rooms, and by eating fruit pies.

In the UK activities tend to be limited to schools, universities, and interest groups. However in the US, where the day is much more popular, some Museums will host events or promotions in recognition of the date.

Activities on Pi day tend to involve talks or presentations on the significance of the number with regards to mathematics and to day to day life, or otherwise they involve doing tasks that relate to the number itself, for example cycling or walking 3.14 miles on the day. The consumption of pies is another very popular custom on Pi day, and it is certainly one of the most easily enjoyable and accessible ways to recognise the date!

While attention to the day has slowly been growing in recent years, expect a lot more recognition of Pi day online and in the news than at a location in your local area, unless you happen to live in the US.

Extra:

The inspiration for a day dedicated to Pi came from America because, whereas in the UK the convention is to write the date as DD/MM/YYYY, in America the date is written in the format MM/DD/YYYY. As such March 14th in America is written 03/14, and as the first 3 digits of the number Pi are 3.14 the day became associated with Pi. This is why the idea of officially celebrating Pi originated in America, and this is why Pi day has become a much more popular event in the US, where the date was formally recognised as "National Pi Day" in 2009, than in the UK.

As a side note: the 14th March is also Einstein's birthday.

If you know of any events relating to mathematics then I'd love to know, it doesn't matter what county its in, just let me know by leaving a comment!