The Flying Colours Maths blog has been running posts twice weekly since 2012, covering maths from the basics to… well, the most advanced stuff I have a clue about.
Here they all are, sorted by date. Some day, other ways to filter them will be possible.
First up, a horrible confession: I like teaching the higher-lever core maths modules (C3 and C4), because they’re closer to ‘real’ maths than the AS-level ones. One of the things that sets them apart is the introduction of proofs, usually for trigonometry1. And a lot of students …
If you ever reach the upper echelons of mathematical research, you will get a fair number of letters and emails from cranks wanting you to champion their crackpot schemes. It goes with the territory. Some of them are entertaining, most of them are harmless, misguided buffoons, and some are dangerous …
Got something that’s bugging you about maths? Post it below for a no-names-no-packdrill reply. It doesn’t matter how silly. If multiplying by 10 is a problem, tell me here – and it won’t be a problem for long!
Structures are the weapons of the mathematician - Bourbaki
A reader asks about e-book pricing: “What’s the best price – mathematically – to sell my e-book at?” This, my friends, is a thorny, thorny question. It’s lucky I’m a mathematician, which means I can brush aside all sorts of difficulties about perceived …
I’ve got a new favourite party trick. It goes like this: “Pick a number1 between 1 and 10 - don’t tell me what it is. Pick another number between 1 and 100 - you can tell me that one. Now work out the first number to the power of the second for me on this handy calculator, and …
Got something that’s bugging you about maths? Post it below for a no-names-no-packdrill reply. It doesn’t matter how silly. What’s your silliest maths question?
Portland, Oregon, is one of the places in the USA that takes great pride in its self-conscious kookiness – you see bumper stickers saying ‘Keep Portland Weird’, just like you do in Asheville, North Carolina and Austin, Texas, and probably another dozen cities who, if they were …
Euler’s constant, $e$ (about 2.718 281 828) is one of the most important numbers in maths – both pure and applied. (Thinking about my final year university courses, the only one I’m pretty sure had no use for $e$ was History of Maths, and frankly that was an oversight.) As a …
Got something that’s bugging you about maths? Post it below for a no-names-no-packdrill reply. It doesn’t matter how silly. If your one-times table is eluding you, give me a shout and we’ll figure it out.
 conclusions, and the gorgeous, exciting moment when everything suddenly falls into place. Terry Pratchett …
Natural logs are just about the easiest part of the A-level syllabus to look like a god in – because they’re wrongly seen as difficult. In fact, once you know a handful of tricks, you can rattle off things such as ’log of 12 is about 2.5, of course…’ (it’s 2.485) …
Got something that’s bugging you about maths? Post it below for a no-names-no-packdrill reply. It doesn’t matter how silly. If you’re struggling with 2 + 2, I promise to be nice.
I don’t remember ever not being good at maths. My first memory of maths is asking my dad what minus three teddy bears looked like – I must have been about four – and him not really answering the question. In retrospect, he probably gave the same answer as I would have given, but I …
[caption id=“attachment_170” align=“alignleft” width=“293” caption=“Photo courtesy of Kmhkmh vie Wikipedia”][/caption] (1913-1996. Erdős was born just before the outbreak of World War I and died shortly before Google was launched. I gather his surname …
Got something that’s bugging you about maths? Post it below for a no-names-no-packdrill reply. It doesn’t matter how silly. If you’ve forgotten what number comes after two, I’ll help.
[caption id=“attachment_905” align=“aligncenter” width=“528”] (Image from mofarahrunningawayfromthings.tumblr.com)[/caption] OK, I’ll admit it. I have a bit of a man-crush on Mo Farah. However, I’m going to sully the purity of my man-love for super-Mo …
[caption id=“attachment_175” align=“alignleft” width=“359” caption=“William Sealy Gosset, aka Student”][/caption] (Pen name of William Sealy Gosset, 1876-1937. Gosset was born a few months after Bell invented the telephone, and died while the Spanish …
Got something that’s bugging you about maths? Post it below for a no-names-no-packdrill reply. It doesn’t matter how silly. If you’ve forgotten what number comes after two, I’ll help.
I teach students from a wide range of backgrounds – from kids who do part-time jobs to earn enough for their tuition money, to kids whose parents run banks, from the shyest and most introverted teenagers, to students so brash they sign autographs. Some of them can barely count, while others …
This is a guest post by Tom Briggs of The Actual Maths and Blogstronomy. I have a soft spot for Benoit B Mandelbrot* because I saw a display about his work at St Andrews while I was waiting for an interview there and got fascinated by the digital sundial one of the professors had proposed. Over to …
Got something that’s bugging you about maths? Post it below for a no-names-no-packdrill reply. It doesn’t matter how silly. If you’ve forgotten what number comes after two, I’ll help.
(This piece is based on a paper I read recently… but I can’t find a reference for it. If you know which paper I mean, please let me know and I’ll update.) There’s a reason tennis knockout draws are seeded. I’ll get to why in a moment. But first, let’s do a …
[caption id=“attachment_163” align=“alignleft” width=“294” caption=“Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. Red chalk. 33 × 21 cm. Turin, Royal Library (inv.no. 15571)”][/caption] (1452-1519. Leonardo was born just before the War of the Roses, and was …