Today, October 16th, is Ada Lovelace Day. Ada Lovelace, for those who didn’t already know (and you all do, right? * wink *), also called Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, is one of the shining stars in mathematics and computer history. Yep, you heard right - a _girl_ was incredibly good at maths :P […]
mathematics
TOSP Episode 15: December 19th 2011
[Original post on the Sciblogs The Official Sciblogs Podcast site] The last TOSP before Christmas! And, because we’re daring, it _isn’t_ Christmas-themed. Just to give y’all a break. Instead, Elf and aimee cover the winners of the Prime Minister’s Science Prize(s), how bees reach consensus (warning: headbutting), a very special new crab, Jupiter’s heart-cannibalisation, the […]
Google launches STEM competition
I’ve just received a press release from Google, about a competition which looks kinda cool :) On January 11th, they’re going to be launching the (first ever, as is so common with the company) Google Online Science Fair. Because of its online nature, it means it can be global pretty easily, and it’s open to […]
The mathematics of war
War! Hngh! What is it good for? Well, the development of some interesting mathematics, if nothing else. And raised eyebrows. And scheming/strategising. Last Monday morning (yes yes, I know - been busy, ‘k?!) I successfully managed to hie myself off to Dr Sean Gourley’s speech about, you guessed it, the mathematics of war. Or, to […]
The first mathematical model for cow behaviour (I kid you not)
Apologies for the slightly dodge agrarian pun in the subject line. Reading the headline for this, however, has had me hanging onto my chair in hysterics for the last 5 minutes (a long time, believe me). And, given the extent to which kiwis care about cows (and their climbing numbers here), it was, I thought, […]
All passengers: please remember your space insurance
Excellent stuff, this, and a fitting way of both apologising for my recent absence, and attempting to be sufficiently interesting to lure my readers (who have no doubt wandered) back to the fold. The topic of today’s post? Why space tourism and insurance, of course! Perhaps it’s just me, but space insurance wasn’t something to […]
A little bit of fun: how to (mathematically) park your car
One wonders if this doesn’t have IgNobel potential. Of course, it’s not particularly useful, so I doubt it, but it does have that slightly silly appeal :) Vauxhall Motors commissioned a University of London researchers by the name of Simon Blackburn to figure out how much space any given car needs to parallel park without […]