Wrong, But Useful

This month’s episode is an interview with podcaster extraordinaire, @samuel_hansen, who is Samuel Hansen in real life. If you’re not listening to Relatively Prime, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Go and listen to it.

In this month’s festive WBU, Colin and Dave discuss… Bill’s second birthday and train set Colin’s latest book is due out any day. First number of the podcast: 998 (days since our first recording) Colin gloats about Spoof My Proof and Dave chews on sour grapes Second number of the podcast: 2124 (number of downloads in 2015 at time of recording) The Maths Police re-investigate Sheffield University Mathematical Society’s naffematical Christmas tree formulas. Alistair Bird investigated this for the Aperiodical in 2012. Dave’s comedy career takes another disastrous nose-dive Colin comes up with his picks of the year, including the […]

In a departure from the norm, Wrong But Useful tries its first panel game. In a completely original format, our intrepid podcasters trade lies in a panel game entitled Spoof My Proof. On Colin’s team: @christianp (Christian Lawson-Perfect) and @dragon_dodo (Dominika Vasilkova) On Dave’s team: @realityminus3 (Elizabeth A. Williams) and @njj4 (Nicholas Jackson). @peterrowlett, the Miles Jupp of MathsJam, hosts. Many thanks to @johndavidread (John Read) and @stecks (Katie Steckles) for recording assistance, and to @colinthemathmo (Colin Wright) for giving his blessing to record — and for running another brilliant Big MathsJam. Show notes: In the final round, Dominika holds […]

In this episode of Wrong, But Useful, @reflectivemaths and @icecolbeveridge…: Argue about the inferiority of statistics Give a number of the podcast: $e^{\frac{\pi}{2}} = i^i \approx 0.20788…$ Review @standupmaths’s excellent Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension Investigate equable shapes in several dimensions, with reference to @tombutton’s MathsJam talk about the radius of a cube Point to @samuel_hansen’s (and his collaborators’) work at acmescience.com; the new series of Relatively Prime is due out in January 2016. Colin likes The Other Half. Threaten to hold the podcast to ransom Plug Big MathsJam! We will both be there all weekend […]

In this month’s exciting instalment of Wrong, But Useful, @reflectivemaths and @icecolbeveridge discuss: The number of the podcast: 36.16 seconds, the current world record for sorting a pack of cards Dave is reading The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure — and asks what happens if you colour in the multiples of five (and Colin gets it wrong) Colin has been reading @standupmaths’s Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, and enjoyed the Calkin-Wilf Tree (not the Carey-Wilf Tree as he says in the audio). Colin points at @onthisdayinmaths’s post on the Farey sequence Every number can be written […]

In this month’s thrilling instalment of the nation’s #1 maths podcast1 , @reflectivemaths and I discuss… The recent leap second The number of the podcast, 999,999,999,998,999,999,999,999. Farey sequences – introducing the mediant of two fractions A couple of agreeable sequences, via @pickover The number of squares of any size on a chessboard The envelopes game Callback to traffic studies: visualising shockwaves A simple puzzle in the New York Time Last episode‘s puzzle answer: 53 (we think) Puzzle: In a Wimbledon tennis match that goes to five sets, the number of games one of the players wins in each set forms […]

In this month’s thrilling instalment of the world’s #1 maths chatter podcast, @reflectivemaths (Dave) and I discuss… The number of the podcast: 1000000000000066600000000000001, Belfigore’s prime. The rollercoaster question and the role of common sense in exams Colin’s reading: The Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics Traffic maths and simulations — Colin recommends Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt Continued fractions, and how to do sums with them New ACME Science podcast (The Other Half) Previous quiz: gold star for @JoshuaZucker; explanation to follow in a blog post towards the end of June Puzzle, stolen from @aap03102: if you consider all of the […]

Our second anniversary, and it’s a bit of a love-in. Sorry to disappoint. Colin and his partner have a new baby, Fred! Happy anniversary to us! Number of the podcast: $2+\sqrt{3}$, because it comes up in the Lucas-Lehmer test for Mersenne primes. A brief digression on the test, Mersenne primes and his list. The anecdote Colin refers to is about Frank Nelson Cole. @johanges (Johan in real life) points us at a video on 3D printing as an education tool. Colin mentions Desmos. Dave wonders what other teaching tools could be printed. Colin goes over to the dark side, gives […]