A six-metre Moon inside Colchester Castle. At a scale of approximately 1:600,000, every centimetre of Museum of the Moon represents six kilometres of the lunar surface. Come and look closer: colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/moon-...
Andrew Stacey
@mathforge.org
Mathematician: formerly academic (differential topology), currently educational (Head of Department in a UK secondary school). Side interests in Maths & Programming & Art. Website: https://loopspace.mathforge.org
Will be in the vicinity of Hay-on-Wye soon. Does anyone know of any bookshops that have a good maths selection? 2nd hand, preferably. @missradders.bsky.social #UKMathsChat #mathsky
Yet again, I find myself wishing that SatNav had an option for "avoid single track roads". And then a refinement for single track roads with high hedges and tractors that other people drive at the actual speed limit along. And a further one for cows.
Dodger, by Terry Pratchett, is 99p as an ebook. For those unsure, "London" is a real place and not part of the Discworld. I know it often seems like it is ...
Been trying to figure out "cappuccino" for the maths café, and @newmathshod.bsky.social has cracked it. (See thread for other delicacies)
@newmathshod.bsky.social · 6d agoCant forget you large extra hot Fibbonaccino either 🥁 Honestly been thinking about this all day
Thinking of quitting my day job to open a coffee shop just for mathematicians¹ I'll call it: Calculatte² ¹so, y'know, everyone who wants to drink there ²inspired by today's typo #mathsky #MathsToday #HoagieHomies
@ayliean.bsky.social I thought you might appreciate this maths we saw at TeamLab Borderless (which you would LOVE) as the map reminded me of your toothpicks!
D&Gs have an ice cream called "love it or hate it". Brits will easily guess its core flavour! It was ... interesting. But I definitely felt that there would be a tipping point where I'd had too much, so I went for the more traditional liquorice flavour instead.
Summer project: rearrange the bookshelves. Currently arranged by colour, but I bet there's a better way to arrange the books. Open to suggestions!
Anyone know if it's possible to get cheap (second hand?) library-style book trollies?
Yet again, that hilarious idea that academics have "secret knowledge" that they are *keeping to themselves*. Mate, we'd be forcing you to read it at chalk-point if that hadn't been outlawed in 1384.
Gro-Tsen@gro-tsen.bsky.social · 2w agoSomewhat unsurprisingly, this thread 🧵🔽 triggered a lot of people who self-identify with the “idiot armed with ChatGPT pro subscription”, who imagine math is a competition and who now feel they're getting their revenge on “gatekeeping” academics being now “butthurt”. •1/16
See also: the congestion charge in Oxford.
EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 2w agoBut mostly, a journey that should take half an hour ends up taking 10 years. Traffic.
Another long but interesting read. #UKMathsChat
Veena Dubal@veenadubal.bsky.social · 2w ago“Sooner or later, elite schools are going to realize that an analog education carries more prestige than an AI-assisted one & will retool their curricula..to reflect that prejudice. This has .. already happened with screens in elementary and secondary education” hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-f...
My solutions are now added to my site: notes.mathforge.org/notes/publis... I ended up with a very different solution to the one I started with. #geometrypuzzle #UKMathsChat #ITeachMaths
Three Hexagons on a Circle in Notes
notes.mathforge.org
Catriona Agg@catrionaagg.bsky.social · last mo.Three regular hexagons. The smallest has area 6. What’s the pink area? #geometrypuzzle
Among the very many harms that LLMs are causing to mathematics is the fact that any idiot armed with a ChatGPT/Claude/whatever “pro” subscription thinks they can produce interesting math with their stupid queries. Or even that the output is necessarily correct.
One pet peeve of mine is that we spend an insane amount of time, money, and resources on bad people doing bad things to prevent them from being bad and doing bad things, but we spend little on good people doing good things - the imbalance may have the consequence that fewer people do good things.
Morning all. There is an account called "Rob Southern fan" using a picture of Jack Brown as it's profile pic that's reposting and commenting on lots of my posts. I've blocked the account and would appreciate you doing the same. 🙂
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-... The headline on the article on the BBC currently reads: "South Africa ease to seven-try win over pointless Wales" which feels a bit harsh.
South Africa 43-0 Wales: Springboks ease to Nations Championship victory in Durban
South Africa ease to a seven-try bonus-point victory over Wales in the third round of the Nations Championship in Durban.
bbc.co.uk
tom lehrer nerds, they put his live Australian performances - a rare 1960 release - on Spotify et al a few days. No new songs, but new intros. @sarahweinman.com open.spotify.com/album/2FhxMZ...
Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia (And Vice Versa) - Album by Tom Lehrer | Spotify
Tom Lehrer · album · 1960 · 13 songs
open.spotify.com
Cold caller: I'm calling from your telephone provider. Me: You haven't said who my telephone provider is. CC: *silence* Me: Would you like to guess? CC: *hangs up*
I know we aren't supposed to be opinionated or political but I spent 20 mins explaining how generative AI actually works (vs old fashioned search engines) and trying to radicalise some y7s against ChatGPT
New post, on why people shouldn't 'never-skill' themselves with AI: kucharski.substack.com/p/dont-never...
Don’t 'never-skill' yourself with AI
If you rent your abilities from AI companies, other people can rent them too
kucharski.substack.com
But it does turn out to be a good example of *weak invariance*!
Andrew Stacey@mathforge.org · 4w agoThis was an interesting one. First instinct: Agg Invariance. But the obvious way with that is to shrink the yellow hexagon to a dot, and edge cases aren't everyone's cup of invariant tea. #geometrypuzzle #ITeachMaths #UKMathsChat
Quick request for all the teachers out there who love the National Cipher Challenge. We will hold our 25th prizegiving at Bletchley Park in early 2027. Which of the following dates is best? 10th February (before half term) or 4th March (after half term).
This was an interesting one. First instinct: Agg Invariance. But the obvious way with that is to shrink the yellow hexagon to a dot, and edge cases aren't everyone's cup of invariant tea. #geometrypuzzle #ITeachMaths #UKMathsChat
Catriona Agg@catrionaagg.bsky.social · last mo.Three regular hexagons. The smallest has area 6. What’s the pink area? #geometrypuzzle