My blog is Travels in a Mathematical World.
Math/Maths Podcast: Peter Rowlett in the UK calls Samuel Hansen in the US and the pair discuss topical mathematics. A podcast from Pulse-Project.org.
Get latest episode (9 Jan 2013).
Travels in a Mathematical World Podcast is a set of 64 episodes of mathematicians speaking in their own words about their work, maths history and maths news.
Get all 64 episodes.
Visit my YouTube channel for videos on puzzles and maths history, as well as higher education maths curriculum talks.
On this page:
Elsewhere on the site, you can view lists of my popular publications and popular talks.
Recent outreach projects
Popular talks (2008-present)
You can view a list of popular talks I have given. As well as occasional lectures for university and school audiences otherwise, when working for the IMA in the 2008/9 and 2009/10 academic years I gave 53 lectures on 'Careers for mathematicians' and 21 on mathematical topics 'Cryptography', 'Puzzles' and 'Spin in ball games' to 2,500 mathematics undergraduate and postgraduate students and 150 academic and careers staff at 47 UK universities. I gave the inaugural 'Virtual Branch' talk for the IMA in 2011, 'An interactive talk on mathematical puzzles'.
Unplanned impact of mathematics (2011)
To help the British Society for the History of Mathematics towards its charitable aim of increasing awareness and knowledge of the history of mathematics, and in the light of concerns about measuring 'impact' in research funding, I put out a call for examples of unplanned impact of mathematics from history and wrote two myself. A set of these were published in Nature (475: pp. 166-169) and I was interviewed for the Nature podcast (14th July 2011). The Nature article was featured by Scientific American in July 2011 and in a column in the Financial Times by Tim Harford in September 2011. Further submissions are welcome.
Maths Jam Nottingham (2010-present)
I started the third regional Maths Jam meeting, following a monthly puzzles and problems evening format set up in London and Manchester, in December 2010. Since then Maths Jam meetings have started in many more cities. Maths Jam in Nottingham is attended by university students, teachers and local people working in engineering and technology jobs. I spoke at the Maths Jam annual conferences in 2010 and 2011.
Solving It Like a Mathematician (2011)
I designed and operated a stall based around puzzles and problem solving, 'Solving It Like a Mathematician', for the East Midlands Big Bang STEM Festival in June 2011 with a group of individuals from my Maths Jam meeting.
Math/Maths Podcast (2010-present)
Since June 2010 I have held a weekly Skype conversation with American mathematical podcaster Samuel Hansen on current affairs in mathematics, recorded and released as the Math/Maths Podcast for science communication project Pulse-Project.
Visit of Samuel Hansen to the UK (2010)
In November 2010, Samuel Hansen, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, visited me in Nottingham for one week. We gave public lectures at the universities of Greenwich, Birmingham and Leicester and spoke at the Maths Jam annual conference and the 13th IMA Early Career Mathematicians Conference. We also recorded our podcast live before audiences at Greenwich and Maths Jam. While Samuel was in Nottingham we recorded a set of videos about mathematics history which is connected to locations in Nottingham, also available on a map of Nottingham.
iSquared Magazine (2009-10)
I wrote three articles on history for the last three issues of iSquared Magazine, a popular maths magazine. These covered cryptography, models of cosmology and the beginnings of actuarial science. For two of these, I also gave an evening lecture to the University of Nottingham Maths society on the same topic and recorded these as videos for the web.
Travels in a Mathematical World (2008-10)
As part of my role at the IMA I produced an audio podcast, Travels in a Mathematical World. Episodes included mathematicians talking about their work, maths history and maths news. When I spoke to university student groups I would ask them to listen to the podcast to look for ideas of what they might do in their careers.
Media appearances
Such as they are, here is a list:
Pod Delusion episode 123, on the UK Government refusal to issue a pardon for Alan Turing, 17th February 2012. Broadcast on Resonance FM 11am 19th February 2012.
Big Science FM, on the unplanned impact of mathematics, Resonance FM, 9pm 25th January 2012.
Pod Delusion episode 114, on declining educational standards, 9th December 2011. Broadcast on Resonance FM 11am 11th December 2011.
Pod Delusion episode 110, interviewing Samuel Hansen about Relatively Prime, 11th November 2011. Broadcast on Resonance FM 11am 13th November 2011.
Pod Delusion episode 108, feature on 10 trillion digits of pi, 28th October 2011. Broadcast on Resonance FM 11am 30th October 2011.
BBC Radio Nottingham Breakfast Show feature on the Nottingham MathsJam, BBC Radio Nottingham, 7.56am 2nd September 2011.
Pod Delusion episode 98, commenting on the Vorderman report on mathematics education, 19th August 2011. Broadcast on Resonance FM 11am 21st August 2011.
Pod Delusion episode 93, feature on 'Unplanned impact of mathematics', 15th July 2011.
Nature podcast, Nature Publishing Group, on 'Unplanned impact of mathematics', 14th July 2011.