This is a rather belated review of Simon Singh’s talk on The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets given for the Leeds Skeptics in the Pub in the Victoria Hotel pub. (There’s a chance to win the book, details below.) The Victoria is not a large pub so I did wonder where the audience was going to fit. In the end I counted nearly 100 people and this did not include those standing in the corridor or in the street outside. The Sardine Conjecture for @SLSingh at @leedsskeptics pic.twitter.com/XqE0p3lOs5 — Martin Iddon (@WalrusofComms) October 20, 2013 The talk is in two halves, the first covers the book and in the second Singh bravely invites questions on any topic connected to his work. The book part of the talk, accompanied by slides, delves into the mathematical backgrounds of the writers of The Simpsons and Futurama and how they inserted mathematical jokes into the programmes. Some of this was familiar as I’m a fan of both shows (though The Simpsons seems to have jumped the shark a while ago — Ned secretly married Mrs Krabappel!?) but Singh has done his homework and gained access to the writers so there is plenty here that was new to me. One of my favourite bits from the book wasn’t mentioned in the talk — there was a theorem invented purely for an episode of Futurama. So, the first part of the talk was about the book and during the interval Singh signed copies. Afterwards he did a question and answer session which amongst other things covered libel laws, Fermat’s last theorem, the Big Bang and quack medicine. The tour continues for another month, details can be found here. A great talk – you won’t be disappointed if you go. —-...

In this post I interview Richard Elwes, author of a number of maths books in recent years. He has kindly agreed to give away signed copies his two most recent, Mathematics in 100 Key Breakthroughs and Chaotic Fishponds and Mirror Universes. For a chance to win all you have to do is sign up for my newsletter, see the right sidebar or the bottom of this post. I’ll get my daughter to randomly pick two winners from the list of subscribers in a couple of weeks. On with the interview… Hello Richard! I think we first met when you were a PhD student here at Leeds. Can you give a quick account of your background to help people get a feel for where you are coming from? I initially followed a conventional academic path: I studied maths as an undergraduate at Oxford, and then moved north to Leeds to start a PhD in 2001, where I met you among other excellent people. My research at that stage was in the general field of mathematical logic. Afterwards I held a postdoctoral position in Freiburg in Germany, and at some point after that I somehow found my way into writing about maths for the general public. Apart from books, I’ve written for the New Scientist, and for the excellent Plus magazine online. In fact I got my first break there, when I won their New Writers’ competition in 2006, with an article about the classification of finite simple groups (http://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue41/features/elwes/index). Your book Maths in 100 Key Breakthroughs came out last month. What’s it about? Who is it aimed at? It’s aimed at anyone who finds the idea of maths interesting and appealing, but who doesn’t want to drown in equations and jargon. So it’s written with...

The week has been so busy that posting this has been delayed – I’ve been to London, Birmingham and Sheffield in the last three days. I did manage to install for a newsletter sign-up form for the blog. You can see it in the sidebar unless my hacks to the code have destroyed it for your browser. Please sign up if you want to know about maths articles, events, etc. Back to business. Simon Singh‘s new book, The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, is as the title suggests about the mathematics occurring in the long running cartoon The Simpsons. Now, I knew there were plenty of maths gags in the Simpsons but I’m surprised he has filled a whole book. Maybe he also includes stuff from Futurama which was packed with maths gags and even led to a lecture by Sarah Greenwald. This became a DVD extra on Bender’s Big Score (The audience features Simpsons and Futurama’s creator Matt Groening.) Singh’s book is not out yet but you can read an article about it in last Sunday’s Observer. He’ll be doing a (rather small) tour to promote the book, details are on his website. I’m planning to be at the Leeds event so maybe I’ll see you...

Recently, an acquaintance from my days as a researcher at Liverpool University alerted me to the existence of the Museum of Mathematics in New York. My acquaintance, Janet West, was a PhD student when I was at Liverpool and is now involved in the museum. There’s plenty of stuff online to look at but I would like to draw your attention if you have not already seen it to a lecture by Colin Wright. Colin is well-known in the mathematics communication community as he probably does more mathematics talks in schools around the country than anyone else. His main talk is about the mathematics of juggling. You can see him talking on to the BBC about it by clicking this link. (Note that the headline says he is a teacher whereas in fact his job is in marine navigation!) Colin gave a talk at the Museum of Maths in New York which was recorded and is on YouTube. You can even buy a DVD version. Teachers: If you are interested in seeing his talk at your school, then go to his...

Mary Cartwright is fairly well-known amongst mathematicians in the UK but less widely known amongst the general public. A recent BBC online article about her and her work may be the beginning of a change in this situation. There is even a Radio 4...