Maths Puzzle Competition

The entries for the freshers' maths puzzle competition have now been marked. There were 4 very close groups with marks between 60 and 55 - Roxy, Lena, Shanka and Tammy but way out in front with 71 points was Emma M's group.

Well done to all those who took part. Answers are not being posted but some questions will be gone through in MaTT at some point.

Pi Day at the British Science Festival

Pi Day (Twitter #PiHunt) yesterday was a great success, with a brilliant audience whose success with Buffon's Needle surpassed our expectations and forced us to depart from our script. And it gave rise to Peter Rowlett's wonderful post-event pi mnemonic

Now I away,
I leave enlivened by having great and happy
historic, enjoyable, happily unanimous joy
at the exciting BSHM #pihunt

So no excuse for anyone to use 22/7 ever again.

(find more at http://travelsinamathematicalworld.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-i-wish-i-could-calculate-pihunt.html)

Pi-Hunting

This is Ludolph van Ceulen, who along with Noel-Ann Bradshaw and Tony Mann of Greenwich and Mark McCartney of Ulster will be presenting an event about the digits of the mathematical constant pi at the British Science Festival on Wednesday 15th September. Robin Wilson will be there too but is unlikely to be around at the same time as Ludolph. A highlight wil be the "Pi Moment" at 3:14pm (why?) To find out more, come to the event!