/podcasts/wbu36.mp3

In this month’s episode, @reflectivemaths and @icecolbeveridge discuss:

  • Dave is baffled by the idea of the Anniversary Games but happy to have a reduced workload
  • We agree on the name and age of the podcast
  • Number of the podcast: 36, the smallest non-trivial square triangle number.
  • Colin has a new book out August 11th! In multiple languages! And a new one in the works, The Maths Behind…. We discuss ideas for it, invite suggestions, and wonder about brigadiers.
  • Dave is editing a book on Core Maths, a new post-16 course that sounds good. We discuss making maths relevant to young adults by not talking about cheques.
  • Short announcements:
    • Sumaze 2 is out - a great game for developing maths skills.
    • MathJax extension now allows better typesetting (via @peterrowlett).
    • An article about tools with a nice quote: “There was nothing difficult about … multiplication; the problem was that numbers .. had a bad user interface” (via @mrhonner).

  • Dave went to Upfest in Bristol, in Britain, and found mathematical graffiti:

    . We namecheck @samuel_hansen for talking about crochet in this podcast with Daina Taimina.

  • Colin looks into an article about Melania Trump’s ‘plagiarised’ speech and we put on our skeptical faces (via @sesquiotic).
  • Dave is on holiday and thinking about sports day! What’s the best way to score it? Colin mentions decathlon scoring, which he wrote about before.
  • @peterrowlett writes in the Aperiodical about exam timetabling and we share our thoughts.
  • Dave has some science teachers covering project-based maths classes.
  • We give a deep insight into a 200TB maths proof, which is the largest ever.
  • Do send us audio if you want to! Email colin@flyingcoloursmaths.co.uk .
  • Two stars for @fenneklyra for her entries into Dave’s last puzzle, one of them for being a smart-arse.
  • This month’s puzzle: 36 is, famously, a square number immediately preceded by three semi-primes. What’s the next one?
  • Tweet us with the hashtag #ilistentowbu for some reason
  • Thanks to @realityminus3 for a nice iTunes review. To be more like her, leave a nice review of your own!

More next month, with any luck!