Oxford Publishing Consultant
3.14: this day comes around every year, circling back again with the spring season in UK.
π is an integral part of Euler’s Identity, which reads:
It’s a bit geeky, but the pure simplicity of this formula is brilliant. Worth dwelling on for a day at least.
Happy π Day
The book Simply Maths is now published by Dorling Kindersley and I have received my author copy! It explains everyday maths topics in a simple visual way, with few words, and even fewer hard sums. It also introduces a few not-so-everyday topics, to help the realisation that maths isn’t just about percentages and fractions, or going supermarket shopping. It’s in a wonderful handy format, with attractively illustrated pages. I do hope you have a chance to look at this book and enjoy it.
The perfect book to receive on 22/02/2022.
Do visit the DK website here to get a copy:
Today’s date is the 2nd of February, 2022 or 02/02/2022. All those twos and zeros are rather satisfying. The Pythagoreans aimed to describe the universe using numbers and shapes. They regarded 2 as representing the female principle; however, they did not have zero as a number. It seems strange now but it was not an obvious concept at all. The idea of a positional number system with place value emerged slowly over centuries, typically with a placeholder symbol representing ‘nothingness’, and not regarded as a number in its own right. Probably the most advanced of these systems was the Mayans, who were totally detached from the Graeco-Roman and Indian advances in mathematics, but could calculate efficiently into the millions. It was not until the 7th century CE in India that the illustrious mathematician Brahmagupta established the arithmetical rules for zero that we use today.
Two and zero – an image of duality: matter and antimatter emerging from the void. Have a good day, and look out for 20/02/2022 in a couple of weeks!
Over the course of my educational publishing career, which is over 20 years now, I have learned and applied many new skills, reflecting the needs and technologies of the time. One thing that I have noticed, and particularly during my current time as a freelance consultant/ publisher, is that there appears to be an increasing demand for publishers and editors to be responsible for formatting and general page layout. Whereas it used to be fairly standard that a good development editor would work with the text and images in a book to ensure that it was of the highest quality, leaving it up to a design house or typesetter to implement the actual page layout, this task is now falling at the feet of the editor. The skills required are quite different – familiarity with software packages, and ability (as well as willingness!) to work with templates and formatting. All of this is at the expense of good subject matter knowledge and editorial experience.
This is all largely due to a shift towards digital media rather than printed books, blurring the boundaries between traditional editorial and design roles. There may also be a pressure to cut costs, due to a worsening economic situation. Either way, I feel that I am probably not alone in regarding my strengths as being elsewhere. I look forward very much to the future of publishing, and am excited about the potential of digital media, but I sincerely hope it does not result in the extinction of the traditional publisher, who is well-informed in the subject, well-informed in education and market trends, and has an intuition for what works on the page.
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An exciting new book called Simply Maths will be published by Dorling Kindersley on 3rd February 2022. It’s a uniquely visual approach to understanding the key concepts behind the mathematics that you may only vaguely recall from school – or perhaps never even learned!
Here is the sunset over Oxford on 18th November 2021.
This Guardian article is interesting:
The research seems to be focused on popular western musical genres, although presumably it can be applied elsewhere. The idea is that you can mathematically model the popularity of music in the same way that the spread of a virus is modelled. I guess however you’d still need to make assumptions on, say, how any particular song will be received by the intended market. And this research was conducted quite a while ago, in the time when downloads were prevalent. But still very interesting, with possible implications for music industry predictions.
I’ve been listening to a lovely Radio 4 mini-series this week, on a 58-year old ex-FT columnist turned trainee maths teacher in an East London school. Follow the adventures of Lucy Kellaway here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000m84
Not sure that I’d go back to teaching full-time, though I admire all those that do. Maybe part-time, or a bit more tutoring, which I’ve started doing recently.
3.141592653589793238462643383279 502884197169399375105820974944 5923078164 062862089986280348253421170679…………………….
Researchers in a Swiss university have just calculated π to 62.8 trillion decimal places, setting a new record. We don’t really need this many digits – indeed, it’s been estimated that around 40 digits are sufficient for any calculations on an astronomical scale – however, the act of knowing this irrational (and transcendental) number with ever greater certainty is an inspiring challenge that has occupied human thought since ancient Egyptian times and possibly earlier, as evidenced in the Rhind papyrus of around 1650 BCE. Also, the technology used in generating this value can be utilised in other more practical areas such as fluid dynamics.
The constant π is inextricably linked with circular measure, which in turn makes it essential for calculations involving periodic processes in both the natural and constructed worlds; it is also invaluable in modelling random processes associated with probability.
See the full report on the latest developments with π in The Guardian here: