With all that is happening with Covid-19, perhaps relevant to remind ourselves about exponential growth.
Science Communication – Technical Writing and Presentation Advice
The two videos below were made a few years ago to support a Science Communication and Group Project module at the School of Physics Astronomy and Mathematics at the University of Hertfordshire. The work was supported by the Institute of Physics and the HE STEM programme. I also got support from the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. The tools are probably a bit dated now, but I hope the principles still help some students trying to get their work seen.
The students were encouraged to share and communicate the results of their projects via a video and they were supported by tutorials on how to do screencasts.
Students were also encouraged to prepare technical documentation and the videos for using LaTeX and structuring their documents with LaTeXwere very useful.
Technical Writing
This presentation addresses some issues we should take into account when writing for technical purposes.
Presentation Advice
In this tutorial we will address some of points that can help you make a better presentation either for a live talk or for recording.
Screencasting with Macs and PCs
The videos below were made a few years ago to support a Science Communication and Group Project module at the School of Physics Astronomy and Mathematics at the University of Hertfordshire. The work was supported by the Institute of Physics and the HE STEM programme. I also got support from the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. The tools are probably a bit dated now, but I hope the principles still help some students trying to get their work seen.
Students were asked to prepare a short video to present the results of their project and share it with the world. To support them, the videos below were prepared.
Students were also encouraged to prepare technical documentation and the videos for using LaTeX and structuring their documents with LaTeX were very useful.
Screencasting with a Mac
In this video we will see some tools to capture video from your screen using a Mac. The tools are Quicktime Player, MPEG Streamclip and iMovie.
Screencasting with a PC
In this video we will see some tools to capture video from your screen using a PC. The tools are CamStudio and Freemake Video Converter.
Uploading a Video to Vimeo
In this tutorial we will see how to set up an account in Vimeo and how to upload your screencast. Also you will be able to send a link to your video to you friends and other people.
Structured Documents in LaTeX
This is a video I made a few years ago to encourage my students to use better tools to write dissertations, thesis and reports that include the use of mathematics. The principles stand, although the tools may have moved on since then. I am reposting them as requested by a colleague of mine, Dr Catarina Carvalho, who I hope will still find this useful.
In this video we continue explaining how to use LaTeX. Here we will see how to use a master document in order to build a thesis or dissertation.
We assume that you have already had a look at the tutorial entitled: LaTeX for writing mathematics – An introduction
Structured Documents in LaTeX
LaTeX for writing mathematics – An introduction
This is a video I made a few years ago to encourage my students to use better tools to write dissertations, thesis and reports that include the use of mathematics. The principles stand, although the tools may have moved on since then. I am reposting them as requested by a colleague of mine, Dr Catarina Carvalho, who I hope will still find this useful.
In this video we explore the LaTeX document preparation system. We start with a explaining an example document. We have made use of TeXmaker as an editor given its flexibility and the fact that it is available for different platforms.
LaTeX for writing mathematics – An introduction
Happy Pi Day 2019
Happy Pi Day 2019
Perfect timing for Mathematics Today
Arriving home and finding my new copy of Mathematics Today. Perfect timing!
The Winton Gallery opens at the Science Museum
During the recent Christmas and New Year break I had the opportunity to visit the Science Museum (yes, again…). This time to see the newly opened Winton Gallery that housed the Mathematics exhibit in the museum. Not only is the exhibit about a subject matter close to my heart, but also the gallery was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. I must admit, that the first I heard of this was in a recent visit to the IMAX at the Science Museum to see Rogue One… Anyway, I took some pictures that you can see in the photo gallery here, and I am also re-posting an entry that appeared in the London Mathematical Society newsletter Number 465 for January 2017.
Mathematics: The Winton Gallery opens at the Science Museum, London
On 8 December 2016 the Science Museum opened a pioneering new gallery that explores how mathematicians, their tools and ideas have helped shape the modern world over the last 400 years. Mathematics: The Winton Gallery places mathematics at the heart of all our lives, bringing the subject to life through remarkable stories, artefacts and design.
More than 100 treasures from the Science Museum’s world-class science, technology, engineering and mathematics collections help tell powerful stories about how mathematical practice has shaped and been shaped by some of our most fundamental human concerns – including money, trade, travel, war, life and death.
From a beautiful 17th-century Islamic astrolabe that used ancient mathematical techniques to map the night sky to an early example of the famous Enigma machine, designed to resist even the most advanced mathematical techniques for codebreaking, each historical object has an important story to tell about how mathematics has shaped our world. Archive photography and lm helps capture these stories and digital exhibits alongside key objects introduce the wide range of people who made, used or were affected by each mathematical device.
Dramatically positioned at the centre of the gallery is the Handley Page ‘Gugnunc’ aircraft, built in 1929 for a competition to construct a safe aircraft. Ground-breaking aerodynamic research influenced the wing design of this experimental aircraft, helping transform public opinion about the safety of ying and securing the future of the aviation industry. This aeroplane highlights perfectly the central theme of the gallery about how mathematical practice is driven by, and in uences, real-world concerns and activities.
Mathematics also defines Zaha Hadid Architects’ design for the gallery. Inspired by the Handley Page aircraft, the gallery is laid out using principles of mathematics and physics. These principles also inform the three-dimensional curved surfaces representing the patterns of air ow that would have streamed around this aircraft.
Patrik Schumacher, Partner at Zaha Hadid Architects, recently noted that mathematics was part of Zaha Hadid’s life from a young age and was always the foundation of her architecture, describing the new mathematics gallery as ‘an important part of Zaha’s legacy in London’. Gallery curator David Rooney, who was respon- sible for the Science Museum’s recent award- winning Codebreaker: Alan Turing’s Life and Legacy exhibition, explained that the gallery tells ‘a rich cultural story of human endeavor that has helped transform the world’.
The mathematics gallery was made possible through an unprecedented donation from long-standing supporters of science, David and Claudia Harding. Additional support was also provided by Principal Sponsor Samsung, Major Sponsor MathWorks and a number of individual donors.
A lavishly illustrated new book, Mathematics: How It Shaped Our World, written by David Rooney and published by Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers, accompanies the new display. It expands the stories covered in the gallery and contains an absorbing series of newly commissioned essays by prominent historians and mathematicians including June Barrow-Green, Jim Bennett, Patricia Fara, Dame Celia Hoyles and Helen Wilson, with an afterword from Dame Zaha Hadid with Patrick Schumacher.
150th Anniversary Handbook of the London Mathematical Society
I have finally received my copy of the London Mathematical Society Handbook and List of Members.
The handbook has been published in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the society and I am prod to be one of its members.
Prof Simon Donaldson of Imperial College, London, wins 1.8 million pound prize #Maths
Donaldson one of five to win most lucrative mathematics prize ever established
Simon Donaldson received the ‘Breakthrough’ $3m (£1.8m) prize and trophy for “new revolutionary invariants of four-dimensional manifolds”.
The Breakthrough prize in mathematics was established by Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) and Yuri Milner (internet entrepreneur) to encourage more widespread interest in the areas of science and mathematics.
In a Guardian interview Donaldson said of his win: “I was quite taken aback. I haven’t had any time to think what I’ll do with the money. It’s hard to say what impact the prizes will have because they are so new. But one hopes they’ll increase the prominence of the subject in general.”