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Arithmetic!
Yeah, Bill is still awesome. Loved the Arithmetic line in his Democratic National Convention speech. Go give it a listen. Yes, Arithmetic rocks. -cvj Click to continue reading this post → The post...
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Edible Fractals, and the Snowflake
In celebration and anticipation of the unveiling of the Mosely Snowflake Sponge fractal on the USC campus later today, I'm reposting an old post about an edible fractal that I did back in February...
View ArticleList of Lists
Given that I am frequently mystified by the obsession with making lists at the turn of the year, I was pleased to see* the New Yorker's parody of the same with its list of "100 best lists of all...
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Abacus Cadabacus! – Flash Anzan
I was quite stunned by this. For the first part, it is great (and charmingly bizarre) that there is a craze based around the abacus that has such a following (abacus or "soroban" championships), and...
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Straight
In class tomorrow I'll introduce one of my favourite equations: [tex] \frac{d^2x^\sigma}{d\tau^2}+\Gamma^\sigma_{\rho\nu}\frac{dx^\rho}{d\tau}\frac{dx^\nu}{d\tau}= 0\ . [/tex] ... Wait - Where did...
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Self-Similar Dinner
Eventually, although a bit over-priced in the Hollywood farmer's market, I do fall for these at least once in the season. As someone whose job and pastimes involve seeing patterns everywhere, how can...
View ArticleOutstanding in Their Fields…
In case you missed it, Maryam Mirzakhani has been awarded the Fields Medal! This is regarded as the most prestigious prize in mathematics. Here's a Guardian article covering it at a general level, and...
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Coral Forest
Given that you read here at this blog, you may well like to keep your boundaries between art and science nicely blurred, in which case you might like to learn more about the coral reef forests made of...
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Meanwhile, Somewhere Down South…
So while at a hotel somewhere down South for a few days (pen and watercolour pencil sketch on the right), I finally found time to sit and read Graham Farmelo's book "The Strangest Man", a biography of...
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The Imitation Game – Thoughts
[caption id="attachment_16600" align="aligncenter" width="620"] (Photograph: Allstar/Black Bear Pictures/Sportsphoto Ltd.)[/caption] Since this time I don't think I'll be getting the call from the...
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The Visitors
Yesterday I sneaked on to campus for a few hours. I'm on family leave (as I mentioned earlier) and so I've not been going to campus unless I more or less have to. Yesterday was one of those days that I...
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Almost Done
So Tuesday night, I decided that it was imperative that I paid a visit to one really good restaurant (at least) before leaving Santiago. My duties at ICMP2015 were over, and I was tired, so did not...
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Hexaflexagon
My big task this afternoon was not baking but making a hexahexaflexagon! I can’t tell you why right now, but as far as I know it has nothing to do with my recent paper on JT gravity in case you were...
View ArticlePi Day!
It’s pi day today! Don’t forget to celebrate! Options include walking around in circles at 1:59pm, baking a pie, eating pie, etc! Or maybe explain what pi is to somebody… I won’t list irrational...
View ArticleRecurrence Relations
(A more technical post follows.) By the way, in both sets of talks that I mentioned in the previous post, early on I started talking about orthogonal polynomials , and how they generically satisfy a...
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