Love to see this display with work from our enriched curriculum going up in one of our schools
Jonathan Payne
@drpmaths.bsky.social
Maths teacher* now working on United Learning’s @ulmathsexcellence.bsky.social programme. I made some question generators and other tools in the past (mostly superseded by others’ better things): https://www.questiongenerator.co.uk
The website for the 2026 Bridges Conference Exhibition of Mathematical Art, Craft, and Design is now live, featuring the work of more than 150 artists. gallery.bridgesmathart.org/exhibitions/...
Why are there so many pictures of 'golden spirals in nature' where it looks like they haven't even *tried* to make the spiral line up! What is even the point they're trying to make?
Fascinated by pre-Newtonian theories of projectiles and how so obviously wrong they seem. I always wonder how these paths didn't seem incorrect to people at the time, but then whether I've just internalised the correct picture. Curious what typical 'pre-theoretic' drawings of the path would be
Watching 2001 space odyssey on Amazon prime. Love the famous jump cut where a monkey throws up the bone then it cuts to an advert - just as Kubrick intended
A pawn starts on the top row of a (semi) infinite chess board. It can move either one square down or diagonally down (capturing a piece). Highlighting which squares can be reached an even number of ways gives this rather nice fractal
Misspelled ‘implementation’ is ‘implantation’ in a rather formal email… oops!
The two grey areas can be shown to be equal using some algebra. It seems like there should be a nice geometric argument (e.g. with cutting and rearranging), but I can't find one. Am I missing something obvious?
Very pleased with my mathematical broccoli/cauliflower. Just the one out of 8ish plants seemed to work
Telling students stuff is sensible. But if you’re *just* telling them, you’re not really teaching. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...
The “Just Tell Them” Trap
How direct instruction gets mistranslated as 'teacher talk,' lecturing and all sorts of other dull bobbins
open.substack.com
During our #MathsConf39 session, Jason and I revealed our new project: The History and Maths in Education Network (historyand.mathsy.space) which aims to facilitate discussion and sharing of resources & ideas amongst folks interested in using history themes to enrich maths education. 🏛️🎓 #MathsToday
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I've written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, urging them to join me in condemning Elon Musk's dangerous remarks inciting violence yesterday. As leaders, we must stand together and make clear Musk will face serious consequences for these actions.
Elon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday. I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric. Britain must stand united against this clear attempt to undermine our democracy.
It’s official - “Nigel Farage is right, don’t vote for him” is a demonstrably awful strategy for Labour. Boosts salience of immigration, costs votes on the left, doesn’t persuade any voters on right (why would they accept a crap knock-off when they can have the original?)
Daniel Devine@danjdevine.bsky.social · 11mo agoWe have a paper on how Labour's strategy is disastrous. There's an exclusive coverage in @newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...
I know the usual thing is to point out interesting properties of the *current* year, but interesting to note that 2027 (+2029) will be the first twin prime year for 30 years
Was playing with generalising a question from the new Edexcel EMC when I cam across this interesting fact. Nice to be able to come up with a question which combines algebraic proof and coordinate geometry. All just-about GCSE level
Pretty significant misconception to be stating as fact in an official textbook from an exam board
'Interesting' understanding of how birthdays work from ChatGPT here...
ABCD is an isosceles trapezium and ADEF is a square. Find the size of angle ABF.
Does quadrilateral ABCD have a pair of perpendicular opposite sides?
A neat fact about quadrilaterals I found out about today: If the diagonals are perpendicular and equal length, then the midpoints of the sides form a square
What's funny about these four fractions? I guarantee you'll hate it
A combinations/listing question disguised as a ratio question: Given four numbers a,b,c,d such that: - Two of the numbers are in the ratio 1:2 - Two are in the ratio 1:3 - Two are in the ratio 1:4 How many possibilities are there for the ratio a:b:c:d ?
Been playing with tree fractals. The ratio needed between line lengths to make this line up properly was a pleasant surprise
A fun combinatorial question: Given a<b<c<...<h<i, how many ways are there of arranging a-i in a 3x3 grid such that every row and every column is in ascending order?