Podcast: Episode 11 - History with Noel-Ann Bradshaw - Euler

These are the show notes for episode 11 of the Travels in a Mathematical World podcast. All palindromic numbers (that is, numbers that remain the same when their digits are reversed) with an even number of digits are divisible by 11. More about the number 11 from Prime Curios. There is a wealth of information on palindromic numbers at worldofnumbers.com.

In the regular Maths History series, Noel-Ann Bradshaw of the University of Greenwich and also Meetings Co-ordinator of the British Society for the History of Mathematics talks about the life of Leonhard Euler. You can read a biography of Euler at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. You can find out about Euler's work at The Euler Archive, including viewing his original papers.

Since this is the last episode until next year, I also proposed a little Christmas puzzle based on this episode's episode number result on palindromic numbers. You can make palindromic numbers by taking a number, reversing its digits and adding these two numbers together, then repeating until you get a palindromic number. For example, take 92. Add 92 to 29 and you get 121, which is a palindrome. Some numbers need more than one step. For example, take 94. Add this to 49 and you get 143. Add this to 341 and you get 484, which is a palindrome. Try it: How many steps does it take for each of the rest of the nineties, 95-99? Try it for other numbers, although I wouldn't recommend trying it for 196. You can find out the answer to this question and why not to try 196 by reading a question at the Math Forum, "Making Numbers into Palindromic Numbers".

Always carry an emergency Maths Careers postcard

On the way home from my 6 monthly review of the University Liaison Project (sorry? Oh, really well, thanks for asking) I was on the train listening to music through my headphones & tapping away on my laptop. At Leicester or Loughborough two lads got on and sat opposite me. A girl across the aisle had got on too and was talking to them in a defensive way about how much maths there was in her course: "yeah there's quite a bit of physics and some maths too". One of the lads remarked "Is there any solid state physics?" and they laughed. In my experience, peer pressure doesn't work this way round!

After a while, one of them nudged the other and said "look, we've sat at the right table." They were looking at the IMA sticker on the top of my laptop. I didn't acknowledge that I'd heard - I had a report to work on. As we were pulling into the station I heard one of them say to the other, "I might contact them, you know, to ask what careers you can do with maths." I quietly reached into my bag and pulled out my emergency Maths Careers postcard and slid it across the table to him. He laughed and said he would check out the website. Turns out he's a physics undergrad interested in the mathematics side of things. He is looking at defence jobs at the moment. I told him I know a lot of mathematicians who work in this area, and that the Maths Careers website carries some good careers advice. He was still clutching the postcard when he left the station onto the streets of Nottingham, on the way to the outdoor skating rink in the market square.

Of course, this is the very opposite of the leverage I wrote about in Mathematics Today December.

Podcast: Episode 10 - Adrian Bowyer (part 2)

These are the show notes for episode 10 of the Travels in a Mathematical World Podcast. 10 is both a Triangular number and a Tetrahedral number. More about the number 10 from thesaurus.maths.org.

Following on from last week, this week on the podcast is the second of two installments from Dr Adrian Bowyer, who talks through some of the areas his career has taken him into. You can find out more about Adrian from his homepage at the University of Bath, and Adrian has a Wikipedia page.

This week, Adrian talks about his work mimicking biological adaptions in engineering. He talks about his work on the self-replicating machine, RepRap and there is a wealth of information on that website.

While Adrian is speaking I am fascinated by a pile of objects made through a commerical rapid prototyping machine which are sitting on a table in Adrian's office. These are pictured below along with a picture of a RepRap machine and Adrian.

I would very much recommend watching the video on YouTube of "Building RepRap 1.0 'Darwin'", which shows in fast forward Adrian assembling a RepRap machine. This is at times both fascinating and hilarious, particularly the tea break in the middle and the guy who completely grasps the possibility for humour in the different frames of reference of the situation.

For the latest from the RepRap project, read the blog.

Maths careers = cool?

You might be interested to see this video from the DCSF Science and Maths Campaign. I am told this is being shown on TV and in cinemas this month.



This video from scienceandmaths.net
Maths Careers advice: www.mathscareers.org.uk

Podcast: Episode 9 - Adrian Bowyer (part 1)

These are the show notes for episode 9 of the Travels in a Mathematical World Podcast. 9 is prime and excluding 1, for which the case is trivial, 9 is the smallest number which is equal to the sum of the digits of its square. More about the number 9 from thesaurus.maths.org.

This week on the podcast is the first of two installments from Dr Adrian Bowyer, who talks through some of the areas his career has taken him into. You can find out more about Adrian from his homepage at the University of Bath, and Adrian has a Wikipedia page.

There is a reasonable introduction to stick/slip at Wikipedia. Adrian's article in the Computer Journal (downloadble here but not free) proposed what became known as the Bowyer/Watson algorithm. Find out more about Geometric Modelling at Bath here. You can read an introduction to Boundary Representation here. Here is an applet which models Pólya's Urn Experiment.

You can find out more about my work with the IMA by reading this blog and visiting www.ima.org.uk/student.

UPDATE 14/03/09: Obviously 9 is not prime. I've published a blog post highlighting my error: 9 is an experimental error.