Have you noticed maths featuring more extensively on ABC Radio National
and in books and magazines?
When I was in Queensland last October there was in the local library a copy of New Scientist which fell to my hands, and mind boggling is modern maths! One thousand dimensions! "The Algorithm that rules the world". I shall work on the info that I noted down and publish it soon. There is quite a lot to work with; very fascinating. Canada's Massey Lectures 2012 is on at the moment 8pm drat I missed it now it is 9pm...repeat is 3am. I listened this morning 3am. Big Bang etc.
www.abc.net.au/rn/Massey lecture. Two more to go. For copyright reasons there is no transcript. One must buy the book. I shall update this post accordingly asap.
Elaboration 7/7/2013
New Scientist, 11
August 2012. Vol 215. No. 2877.
“The Algorithm That
Rules the World” pp 32-37. By Dr Richard
Elwes, visiting Fellow, University of Leeds,
author of “Maths 1001”.
He noted Historical:-
300BC Euclid
820 Al-Khwarzmu Quadratic equations x2
18th
century Leonhard Euler
1936 Alan Turing
1948 George
Deutzig Simplex algorithm
1957 John Backus IBM
Fortran
1972 Klee and Minty
USA A hypercube in n dimensions has 2n
corners.
In 41
dimensions it has a trillion edges for the simplex algorithm to crawl
along…
Dr Elwes notes a cube
has 6 faces and 8 corners = 14. Edges =
12.
This is the Rule for
Polyhedrons.
A 4D Hypercube has 16
corners, 24 faces, 32 edges, added to
the number of 3D”facets” of the shape (8).
(***you can search
Google Images for Hypercubes.)
Fermat’s Last Theorem
BBC Radio. In Our Time Programs with Melvin Bragg
25 Oct 2012 (ABC Radio
National 3/11/2012)
Diaphantus a2 + b2 = c2, 3,
4, 5, are answers. The Arabs translated
this.
Xn + yn
= zn many people tried to solve it.
This is an excellent
discussion between three mathematicians, re the story of this from 1637. In 1995 the puzzle was finally solved by
Britain’s Andrew Wiles. One can read
transcript of the entire program online.
***Dr Ron Knott was on
this same program Nov 29, 2007. Re
Fibonacci Series.
--------------------------------
CBC Massey Lectures,
with Neil Turok, “The Universe Within Us
will be the key to our future. It is as
if the evolutionary process has an anticipatory element”.
Neil Turock is Canada’s
massey Lecturer for 2012.
In lecture 1: Galileo, Newton, David Hume, Adam Smith,
Faraday, Maxwell, Tate
and Thompson,
Franklin, Gauss,
Ampere, Einstein
Lecture 2 is most
interesting:- Raphael’s “The School of Athens”.
Aristotle, Plato,
Socrates. Pythagoras, Anaximander whose
teacher was Phthales,
Hypatia the first woman
mathematician. Heraclitus. Archimedes.
I went to Google Images
to view the painting. It is a frescoe in
the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura, commissioned by Pope Julius 2 who died in
1513.
Michelangelo was
painting the Sistine Chapel at around the same time.
Raphael was born March
1483 and died June 1520, only 37 years
old.
One can choose from
many images and websites for discussion.
A good one is norfleet1941.tripod.com.
the author divides the picture into six groups- sometimes there is doubt as to who is
who…scholars differ….is it Hypatia, or
Duke of Urbino or Jesus?........
Raphael painted the
architect Bramante as Archimedes (or Euclid?) drawing on the pavement with a
compass (lower RHS), Diogenes is sprawled centre, in a one shouldered blue
robe, Plato is holding the Timaeus and
pointing to heaven, Michelangelo with a mop of dark hair is portrayed possibly
as Heraclitus or Democritus at lower middle.
Raphael has painted himself looking out at us – his is the calm face to
the right of the work. His friend
Castiglioni invented a term for Raphael’s work –“sprezzatura” which means “a certain nonchalance which
conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and
effortless”. ……I quote these words
because I like them so much, tho I worry about copyright…..there is so much
lost in the world; it becomes ephemera…….
Later in the lectures:- Friedmann, Krutkov 1920, Lemaitre, US Georg
Genulf.
1962 first global
satellite, ….Apollo Moon Mission.
1900 Max Planck was the
first to propose the quantum theory of light.
“The universe is almost
unbelievably simple”
“The coming quantum
revolution will supplant our current digital age”.
These are most wise and
in depth historical scientific lectures.
I cannot write more.
One can buy the book
“The Universe Within” from the House of Anansi Press, from cbc shop online or
even from iTunes.
Neil Turock is Director
of Canada’s Perimeter Centre Institute for Theoretical Physics, was previously
Professor of Physics at Princeton University and was Chair of Mathematical physics at Cambridge.
You can see and hear
him on YouTube and on Ted Radio Hour Talks for NPR.
------------
“I Died For
Beauty”, Dorothy Winch and the Cultures
of Science, by Marjorie Senechal.
Tells the story of a
pioneering and controversial female mathematician who helped shed light on the
molecular structure of proteins, was the first to receive a Doctor of Science
from Oxford University.
It came from motherjones.com/media/2011/12/maria-popova
In 1850 Lantern Slides were invented. Beautiful models pictured. 1965 Dorothy stashed her slides on a high
shelf. New technology had made them
redundant. The slides were later discovered and the book was written.
------------------------
“So Crazy It Might
Work”, on This American Life radio and
transcript online.
No. 450 originally 11/11/2011. Also on ABC
Radio National. With Ira Glass.
1644 monk Marin
Marsenne was obsessed with prime numbers. Book,
“The Man Who Loved Only Numbers” by Paul Hoffman. 267
– 1 was the famous formula to
predict these.
In 1903 a mathematician
Frank Nelson Cole, at a maths conference gave a talk. He wrote down the Formula. Then a number 21 digits long. Then = a number 9 digits long x a number 12
digits long. Silence.
Long Multiplication. Result was – that number!
It had taken him 3
years of Sundays ie 156 days to prove he could factorise that number.
------------------
Alan Turing
June 2012 marks 100
years since his birth. He is credited
with the invention of the modern computer.
His tragic death- suicide by cyanide poisoning- marked a life persecuted
for his homosexuality. He’d accepted
treatment with female hormones as an alternative to prison in 1952. *
His
was a life of great achievement nonetheless.
There are endless stories online and in Wikipedia. One such is http://www.incorrectpleasures.blogspot.com.au where I found his epitaph. Others are
jenorton.tumblr.com/post/8987599032/the-epitaph-of-alan-turing. And
http://www.primemagazine.com/2010/learn/great-men-you’ve-never-heard-of-alan-turing
What was Cleverbot? Did
he/it pass the Turing Test?
One has complete
transcript you can read. “In particular,
one can account for the appearance of Fibonacci numbers in connection with fir
cones” is a quote from him. His 1952
paper was “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis”. “Turing believed that chemicals, following
simple math rules could account for all the diversity in nature.”
His Epitaph:-
“Hyperboloids of
wondrous Light
Rolling for aye through
Space and Time
Harbour those Waves
which somehow Might
Play out God’s holy
Pantomime.”
--------------
** I find it such a
pity – I believe the real reason for being gay is that in the mother’s womb the
foetus might be exposed to non appropriate hormones (ie hormone disrupting
chemicals, even oestrogens found in food!) at critical stages of
development. It can take only 1 part per
billion as the critical dose.
Just read “Our Stolen
Future” by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers. Prof Fred vom Salk does mouse experiments. Many scientists are at work on this. BPA in plastic is related to breast and prostate cancers. See http://www.ourstolenfuture.com and especially a recent article by Dr
John P Myers.
There is also a YouTube
video – 15 years on- certain chemicals interact with genes. Suites of genes are being turned on and off
all the time.
Dr Colborn wrote and I
quote from memory,
“Genes
are like the keys on a piano. It is the
hormones that play the tune”.
Strange how it has been
ignored. Even the New York Times
declared war on the theory 21 March 1996! There
must be a way to do things better. We
must get rid of all hormone disrupting chemicals and go Green Chemistry. It is happening. My feeling is that many diseases are result of the poisoning of our earth- insulin and obesity, hormone disturbances of all kinds and severity.
.................
The Algorithm
27/1/2013. original broadcast was in March 2012.
can download audio or show transcript.
Re Book “Nine Algorithms That Changed the
Future” by John Mac Cormack
............
6Dec2012
1. Konrad Wolfram of
Wolfram Research Europe makes computer software for maths.
Song: “Bye, bye,
mathematical Pi…”
2. Dr Keith Devlin,
Exec Dir H-Star inst. Stanford
University
Today high school maths is 17th century….. –
spreadsheets = Algebra = patterns of numbers.
3. Laureate
Professor Jonathan Borwein of School of Maths and Physical Sciences, University
of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.
Data mining/simulation,
cursive exponentiality,
microparallelism (Google does it with info)
Gauss called mathematics the Queen of Science. Maths is many languages. Discover computer communication and
collaborative skills. The IBM Watson
machine beat the Japanese at – chess?
Project Polymath of Tim Gowers = radical departure for the
sciences. Internet helps people anywhere
do world class maths and physics.
4. Prof Terence Tao of Mathematics Dept, UCLA, was a child
prodigy. He won the Fields Medal which
is the highest accolade in maths. He is
involved in the Polymath Project.
Another software is Maple. He
speaks very fast!
One can find info on Project Polymath in Wikipedia, etc.
by Jason Dyer written 25/3/2009 for the non mathematician.
.................................
Lastly, Salman Kahn of “One World
Schoolhouse”. Salman Kahn Academy. 2 million students per month. Maths.
( And every conceivable subject, it seems). It is best to learn at home on video, then do
the calculations at school. Learn by
teaching others.
See him on YouTube,
on TED Radio Talks. Radio
interviews abc.net.au search…….Fantastic.
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-------------------that was a lot; typed on Word and copied, pasted.
