CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-20 14:16:14 (0 comments, 6 reshares, 15 +1s)

On April 17, a paper arrived in the inbox of the Annals of Mathematics. Written by a mathematician virtually unknown to the experts in his field — a 50-something lecturer at the University of New Hampshire named Yitang Zhang — the paper claimed to have taken a huge step forward in understanding one of mathematics’ oldest problems, the twin primes conjecture.  And it had!  Rumors swept through the mathematics community that a great advance had been made by a researcher no one seemed to know — someone whose talents had been so overlooked after he earned his doctorate in 1992 that he had found it difficult to get an academic job, working for several years as an accountant and even in a Subway sandwich shop.

For the whole story read this:

https://simonsfoundation.org/features/science-news/unheralded-mathematician-bridges-the-prime-gap/

Thanks to +Ian Agol forpointing ... more »

2013-05-20 13:09:41 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Saying yes to academic responsabilities

I just read this cool post by +Adriana Salerno about the need to learn how to say "no" every now and then in academia (http://goo.gl/znq5h)

I thought I'd put a blog post together  in which I attempt an xkcd style graph showing the probability of saying "Yes" to academic responsibilities based on career stage. You can find it here: http://goo.gl/D6c4F.

I made use of the XKCDify (for matplotlib + +Python) code here: http://goo.gl/1xX2O

#xkcd  

2013-05-20 13:04:02 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

Arrived at Gregynog (mid Wales) for 3 days of the Welsh Mathematical Colloquium.  This is one of my favourite annual meetings, given the beautiful location, peacefulness and opportunity to listen to talks across a wide range of mathematical topics.  

Got here nice and early so I can carry on reading +Izabela Komenda's thesis in the beauty library; it is thus probably a good thing that +Vincent Knight hasn't come this year to distract with organising sports games on the lawn for all of us! (although I will miss that this year).   The bedrooms aren't your usual sort here either and all rather different and odd in their own way.  This year I think I'm in my favourite room so far however, with fantastic views and three beds to chose between!  
(And Vince, just been for a quick run and they now gravelled that path through the woods - see picture - spoilsports!!)

2013-05-18 18:54:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

The future of cancer research requires mathematical modelling and this community is the place to find out about the latest research.

2013-05-18 17:42:41 (3 comments, 5 reshares, 22 +1s)

Best animated gif...EVAR! #space  

2013-05-18 07:47:21 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 26 +1s)

Congratulations to +Leanne Smith, no sorry, Dr Leanne Smith :D
Leanne has just successfully defended her thesis on "Modelling Emergency Medical Services" which employed location theory, optimisation methods and computer simulations, working with the Welsh Ambulance Service, supervised by myself, +Vincent Knight and +Janet Williams.  I can't begin to describe how proud I am of Leanne.  She has overcome various issues to get to this point.  It's been a real blessing to have played a role in her supervision.  She was absolutely awesome in the viva.  Now Leanne is off to Boston for a post-doc and we wish her all the best in this new venture :D  

2013-05-17 13:09:22 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The science behind the Dambusters raid - 70th anniversary of Operation Chastity

May 16 marked 70 years since the daring Dambusters raid of World War II, in which RAF pilots used bouncing bomb to breach two German dams.  This has been recreated by a Cambridge-led team (Dr Hugh Hunt et al) to demonstrate how the amazing feat was achieved.   

Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (1887-1979). Wallis was the engineer and inventor behind the science of the bouncing bombs (http://www.sirbarneswallis.com/)
 
Cambridge Research:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/bombs-away-the-dambusters-bounce-back

http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/

Source of video at: http://goo.gl/hNbgy

2013-05-17 09:57:10 (5 comments, 3 reshares, 6 +1s)

The science behind the Dambusters raid - 70th anniversary of Operation Chastity

May 16 marked 70 years since the daring Dambusters raid of World War II, in which RAF pilots used bouncing bomb to breach two German dams.  This has been recreated by a Cambridge-led team (Dr Hugh Hunt et al) to demonstrate how the amazing feat was achieved.   

Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (1887-1979). Wallis was the engineer and inventor behind the science of the bouncing bombs (http://www.sirbarneswallis.com/)
 
Cambridge Research:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/bombs-away-the-dambusters-bounce-back

http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/

Source of video at: http://goo.gl/hNbgy

2013-05-17 08:52:31 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 13 +1s)

This video won first place in the inaugural Math-O-Vision contest, which invites high school students to make math-themed videos.  A great contest, and a great video!

2013-05-16 16:42:54 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The University of Reading is hiring a new Teaching Fellow in Applied Statistics! Joblication details below.

2013-05-16 12:25:34 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

Just gone through 3 groups presentations for my SAS/R course where I ask students to teach me something in SAS and/or R that was not covered in the class.

All the groups have done great and 1 group showed how to get the Mandelbrot set using R. I'm sure they won't mind me sharing the gif they got R to produce.

#fractals   #math  

2013-05-15 19:08:37 (13 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

This is a cute idea (and something which one can install on a Chrome browser in seconds).  It's a chrome plugin that automatically puts large dimensionful units on the web pages one reads in context by providing a comparable reference point (e.g. 300,000 acres becomes annotated with "Hong Kong" or "Los Angeles").

2013-05-15 17:49:03 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

+Moffitt Cancer Center has produced this beautifully shot video of our cancer centre. Not entirely sure people will gain much of an insight of our work with it but it's nice to see loads of good scientists I work with like +Lynch Lab , +Leah Cook and my colleagues at the department of Integrated Mathematical Oncology.

2013-05-14 15:37:03 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

2013-05-14 08:02:04 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Good luck to all our +Cardiff Maths MSc OR/Stats students and our undergraduates taking exams this week.  My healthcare modelling exam has just started...

2013-05-13 11:16:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Sat in on the opening session of the LANCS workshop on Discrete and Nonlinear Optimisation (http://goo.gl/uMUuh).  Very nice talks by Jon Gillard on optimization challenges for Henkel structured low rank approximations, and +Joerg Fliege on robust multiobjective potfolio optimization.  

2013-05-13 08:11:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

The LANCS International Workshop on Discrete and Nonlinear Optimisation starts today, hosted by the OR Group here at +Cardiff University.   Welcome to all our visitors.

2013-05-12 13:47:01 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

An interesting live map of Wikipedia updates - At the moment we're getting an update every 30 seconds to the English-language Wikipedia (on a Sunday when most of America is still asleep).

It'd be interesting to see what happens when a major (or controversial) event takes place...

http://rcmap.hatnote.com/

2013-05-11 19:25:44 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

Good source of tex diagrams

2013-05-11 18:09:15 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Just refound this, and now realise it is not just me.

Love xkcd, it makes me feel more normal...

2013-05-11 10:45:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I've just posted part 1 of an interview +Katie Steckles and I did with David Singmaster for +The Aperiodical about his favourite maths books.
The book he wanted to talk about was Luca Pacioli's De Viribus Quantitatis, an unpublished treatise on mathematics and magic.
It was an enormous pleasure listening to David sharing his passion for recreational maths. We couldn't bear to cut anything out of the interview so part 2, with the last 15 minutes and a bonus extra segment, will appear next week.

2013-05-10 10:59:46 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

I've just finished production of my final set of tutorial videos for this semester, on continuous and differentiable functions.  This one ended up being a bit longer-running than my previous ones, so I had to break with my usual tradition and make it a trilogy, rather than a double bill.  I have told the students that I won't give away any spoilers by telling them how the trilogy ends.

A real-valued function is continuous if it doesn't "jump" from one place to another at any points of its domain, and it's differentiable if it's "smooth" at all points.  Unfortunately, students taking Analysis II are required to know the proper mathematical definitions of these concepts, which (in many cases) obfuscates their understanding.  In these videos, I attempt to show how the mathematical definitions relate to the intuitive ideas with diagrams and simpleexa... more »

2013-05-08 17:19:45 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 20 +1s)

I taught my Discrete Math classes using a modified Moore method this semester. The students typed up their work in LaTeX (using ShareLatex) to create the "textbook" for the course. I just got the bound copies. They look amazing.

2013-05-08 05:33:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Starting in June, this looks an interesting +Coursera module on Model Thinking, delivered by a Professor of Complex Systems, to illustrate a range of different models and applications.

2013-05-07 18:27:14 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

@AlexGFletcher: Really cool-sounding Wellcome Trust & MIT fellowship opportunity (for those with up to 3 years' postdoc experience): http://t.co/R6zh2pFHFr

2013-05-06 16:35:28 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

A spectacular Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the heart of the Lagoon Nebula. Seen as a massive cloud of glowing dust and gas, bombarded by the energetic radiation of new stars, this placid name hides a dramatic reality.
#TheUniverse   #Space   #Nebula   #science   #scienceisawesome  

2013-05-05 11:14:29 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

Estimating pi using Monte Carlo Simulation

A while back +Sara Del Valle shared a link to this article: http://goo.gl/yCgI8 entitled: "The 12 Most Controversial Facts In Mathematics". Reading through it I thought I'd write a +Python script to estimate pi by randomly generating points in a square and counting those that lie within a circle.

This morning I tweaked the code a bit (mainly to spit out a bunch more graphs) and put together this short video (<5 mins) showing the "rain drops" landing in "the field" (that idea, instead of darts was given to me by someone on G+ I forget where but thanks!) and seeing the estimate of pi improve.

The code is on github: http://goo.gl/wvsAK and I've written a short blog post here: http://goo.gl/EuNOF.

#montecarlosimulation   #pi   #sciencesunday  

2013-05-04 21:23:02 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Euler and street view on Google Maps.

2013-05-03 20:42:35 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Fair play Treviso. Completely stunned the Scarlets this evening. Scarlets gonna have to pick themselves up for next week's battle against Ulster...
#pro12

2013-05-03 10:02:02 (2 comments, 5 reshares, 14 +1s)

2013-05-03 09:59:18 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

Today I'm sat reading a load of stuff on OA in preparation for a meeting on Tuesday.  I've been asked to sit on a small OA working group for the UK Operational Research Society.  Heck, there are loads of related documents to read and take in!  Anyone who thinks it is all rather straightforward and obvious must realise the complexities such as transitional period, what other countries and governments are doing as this is inextricably linked within a subject domain, threats to income on learned societies, what publishers actually do offer (and don't!!), research councils stance etc etc.  I'm am a big OA fan and want to see things changing for the better in that sense (as an Editor also I feel I can see different sides of the story), but it takes time and a concerted effort.  Understanding and appreciation of the issues (and I don't pretend to know it all right now) ratherthan a bullish... more »

2013-05-02 19:21:45 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Online Game Theory

http://twothirdsoftheaveragegame.appspot.com/

Tomorrow I'll be announcing the "winner(s)" of my online version of the two thirds of the average game. There's still time to participate if you haven't already :)

Click the link above, enter a guess and that's about it. (Feel free to leave a url and I'll point to it on my blog tomorrow).

Here's my blog post about it: http://goo.gl/7AuZv

2013-05-02 18:33:10 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Taking a leisurely drive back from near London to South Wales. Beautiful evening and a lovely drive along the Wye Valley as I near home now. Some country music on the radio (this is rare in the UK, as is the blue sky!). That's Tintern Abbey in one of the pics, just a mere 900 years old or so!

2013-05-02 13:27:56 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Had a fun and insightful day at the launch event of the Cumberland Initiative which I've been helping a little to organise with Sally Brailsford (Southampton) and Terry Young (Brunel). Theme was modelling emergency care services with a series of short talks and a modelling exhibition area. 2 of the +Cardiff Maths MSc OR/Stats students are joining up with several other MSc students from other Universities to work with hospitals over the summer of redesign of services (ED, ambulances, primary care etc). A mixture of academics and clinicians attending.

Fantastic presence and input from the Cardiff team including +Vincent Knight, +Janet Williams, +Julie Vile. +Izabela Komenda, +Leanne Smith. Go team Cardiff!

http://www.cumberland-initiative.org/2013/03/07/cumberland-initiative-national-centre-launch-1-3-may-2013/

2013-05-02 10:57:33 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

RWC2015 schedule announced!

2013-04-30 12:55:01 (3 comments, 6 reshares, 20 +1s)

Live Airtraffic Display

Wow, fascinating and disturbing at once. http://www.flightradar24.com/
shows live airtraffic with optional details for airports and flights. Looks a bit crowded up there. And it would be great, if it would display a ticker of the (estimated) CO2 emissions produced.

2013-04-30 09:59:34 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

That time of year again... Assigning students to projects for the +Cardiff Maths MSc OR/Stats summer dissertations, whereby the majority of our students spend 3 months working in industry.  At first glance, looks like it could be messy this year - thankfully (as one might expect) I have several Operational Research tools to hand to hopefully find a desirable/equitable allocation!  

2013-04-29 09:25:11 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

This is a great question for any maths enthusiast to reflect on.

(Via http://education.lms.ac.uk/2013/04/what-was-the-first-bit-of-mathematics-that-made-you-realize-that-math-is-beautiful/ )

2013-04-26 14:37:55 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Invitation to play online version of the two thirds of the average game.

http://twothirdsoftheaveragegame.appspot.com/

I've blogged about this game quite a few times (recently: http://goo.gl/MrXDd) and it's great for outreach and teaching as an introduction to #gametheory .

I've been putting together an online version of the game which allows everyone and anyone to play. That's this: http://twothirdsoftheaveragegame.appspot.com/

If you could spare 3 minutes (at the very most) to take a guess I'd really appreciate you taking part.

I can't offer anything to the winner but I will write a blog post next week and (as long as the winner doesn't mind) I will share their name on there :)

You're welcome to guess multiple times it's only your last guess that will count.

The github repo fort... more »

2013-04-26 11:39:53 (11 comments, 15 reshares, 29 +1s)

Two mathematicians, an anthropologist and a criminologist... (no it's not the start of a bad joke!)

This week an email landed in my inbox from a Police Superintendent in Wales. Thankfully it wasn't about any speeding fine but he wants some mathematical modelling help attempting to predict areas where crimes are going to occur, and then making sure that police are in these areas at the right time.  

Turns out that something similar was done in Los Angeles by a team of two mathematicians, an anthropologist and a criminologist.   The research makes use of the Fokker–Planck equation and Bayes’ theorem.  The paper can be viewed at: http://math.scu.edu/~gmohler/geopro_final.pdf

The Superintendent was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship at Penn State University so is keen to learn from the US and the example in LA.  I can only imagine though that crimerates and the n... more »

2013-04-25 16:28:10 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 4 +1s)

Clear As a Bell

The Smithsonian has released audio recovered from a wax and cardboard disc dated April 15, 1885. In it, you can clearly hear the inventor speak the words: "Hear my voice -- Alexander Graham Bell."

2013-04-24 14:21:44 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Had a fun day at the OR Society taking part in a training day for our five ambassadors from Cardiff and Greenwich Universities (undergraduate students) who will spend 5-6 weeks in high schools developing and piloting OR resources in mathematics lessons. Part of the day involved playing some of the games we've already developed including those using Lego (to introduce optimisation) - shown in the photos run by +Louise Orpin, my disease modelling role-play and +Vincent Knight's game theory materials. Vince and myself will supervise the Cardiff guys and +Noel-Ann Bradshaw the Greenwich team. Really excited about this initiative!

2013-04-24 07:29:12 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

+Praveen Paul , a friend from London, is co-organising Pint of Science and this video explains what this is about. So if you happen to be in the UK (and close to either Cambridge, Oxford or London) on the 14-16th of May and are interested in science, get some free tickets.

2013-04-23 16:44:46 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

Delighted and honoured to have just received a formal invitation to give a plenary at this year's Brazilian Operational Research Society conference (symposium on OR) http://www.sbpo2013.ect.ufrn.br/?idioma_cod=12

To be held at a beach resort near Natal... looks just horrible but will force myself to go in the name of mathematics... ;-)

2013-04-22 16:46:41 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Beautiful view from my hotel window. Storm clouds coming in off the Irish Sea. Giants Causeway is a few miles along the coast from here in Portrush.

2013-04-22 14:38:32 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Starbucks at 30,000 feet, an exit seat, and some time to read math papers. How civilised! :)

2013-04-22 08:56:49 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

So I'm spending some time this week working on a bunch of small web "things" for my upcoming #gametheory  class. I want my class to play games online before classes so that we can talk about their "behaviour" in class.

My original plan was to just use +Google Drive forms (the stuff I'm doing doesn't technically need to be dynamic) but over the weekend I had a bunch of people mention Google App engine so I'm going to try and figure that out and see if I can get it to work. It would be ideal if I could get everything running dynamically thanks to python (I think the main weakness I'll need to address is my "database"-foo). It looks like an awesome tool.

(If anyone's got any tip/tricks about this stuff I'd very much appreciate them :))

2013-04-21 07:54:27 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

On my way to the latest in a series of 2-day www.cumberland-initiative.org workshops on modelling for healthcare reform / systems reengineering. Travelling with colleague +Janet Williams but I don't think I'll be great company as I'm really looking forward to the 4 hour train journey as an opportunity to start reading a PhD thesis that I'm external examiner for in a couple of weeks time! It's on queueing theory and networks.

2013-04-21 07:17:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Professor Terry Young heads up the Cumberland Initiative http://www.cumberland-initiative.org/ a group of healthcare modellers.

Here's a very short video ( < 2mins) briefly talking about the initiative and describing how modelling can (will?) help improve healthcare delivery.

I'm involved via +Paul Harper and others at +Cardiff University and we'll be in Reading on the 2nd of May for the launch event which will be taking a particular look at unscheduled care.  The flyer for the event is here: http://goo.gl/rDDcM.

2013-04-20 11:56:11 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

Alfred Russel Wallace

I hadn't realised until I heard this earlier in the week that 2013 is the 100th anniversary of Wallace's death. Wallace was born in Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales, which is only 10 miles or so from where I live.

In February 1858 Wallace was suffering from an attack of fever in the village of Dodinga on the remote Indonesian island of Halmahera when suddenly the idea of natural selection as the mechanism of evolutionary change occurred to him. As soon as he had sufficient strength he wrote an detailed essay explaining his theory and sent it together with a covering letter to Charles Darwin.

Unbeknownst to Wallace, Darwin had of course discovered natural selection several years earlier. Wallace's essay along with two unpublished excerpts from Darwin's writings on the subject, were subsequently published together as the paper "On... more »