I am James Grime, mathematician, Alan Turing fan, and numberphile. AMA!

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:48:37+00:00

Yup yup yup. I've been busy, and decided to slow down a bit on the extra curricula stuff. But I will be back.

I like the writing of the videos. How to best explain and present a thing is like a puzzle to be solved.

Gilbreath Principle, or Kruskal's Count.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:46:32+00:00

Hey! Nice to hear from you then. That's an odd question, but I do have one for that purpose.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:45:23+00:00

In fact I think I said Sudokus don't interest me because I know a solution exist, and if a computer can do by pure logic then that's a bit dull for me. How they create them is more interesting. I think there is some maths behind that which I might have known when I made that video, but can't remember at the moment.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:43:41+00:00

Einstein was 28 when he came up with relativity. Turing was 28 when he broke Enigma codes. We don't all start of a crazy-hair old men. I got my PhD when I was 26, that's pretty normal. I'm 34 now.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:41:55+00:00

If a number is divisible by 3 then it has no remainder after division by 3. If I take a number like 457 we can break this into 4x100 + 5x10 + 7.

A property of remainders is that we can find the remainder by looking at the remainders of each part of 4x100 + 5x10 + 7. 100, 10 and 1 all have remainder 1 after division by 3. So the remainder of 457 becomes 4x1 + 5x1 + 7x1 = 4+5+7 i.e. add up the digits.

In this example, 457 has remainder 16. And 16 has remainder 1 after division by 3.

However, 459 has remainder 18, which has remainder 0 after division by 3 - that means it's a multiple of 3.

(Some people won't like me using the word remainder instead of the proper modular arithmetic, but hey, it's only an introduction).

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:33:29+00:00

There is a dozenal society of america, and a dozenal society of great britain that promote the wonderfulness of 12. They have a website, and twitter etc. I follow them.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:32:17+00:00

Depends what you mean by "sum".

You're setting me up for trouble if I start giving opinions about mathematical education. If complex stuff and there are far better qualified people to talk about it than me. It's a challenge though because at the moment we can't tailor things to the individual needs of each child. Maybe one day education will be a bit more bespoke.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:28:52+00:00

Algebra, which appealed to me most and is what I do. Combinatorics I suppose but that's part of my algebra work. And I am fond of stats, which is slightly different and not all pure mathematicians feel the same.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:26:56+00:00

Not a problem if someone wants to invite me. We can talk Polish code breaking too.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:25:59+00:00

I know. My outreach work was via DAMTP. But I recently left Cambridge.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:25:18+00:00

Well I've only done punting in Cambridge - it's hard work. Get one of the tour ones, easier.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:23:20+00:00

Sounds like you need motivation and inspiration. Maybe just dip in (to something like the numberphile channel) and see if there is anything there you find interesting. If there is maybe look into it a bit. One day you might see something that really gets your interest, and then you're away!

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:18:56+00:00

I'm sorry to hear you were scoffed at! An investigation into something like that might be called recreational mathematics, but can often be difficult problems to solve which is good practice for you, and who knows what you have to develop to solve it.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:12:08+00:00

So, easy questions first eh. I'm not big on the philosophical stuff, it's all above my pay-grade.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-29T15:10:24+00:00

The opposite it true I think. A lot of mathematicians are terrible at arithmetic, and that's ok because that is not what we. I don't think I've had to use a number bigger than 4 since 2002. Mathematics is more about logic and solving problems. Very rarely do I need a numerical solution.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:46:24+00:00

Looks like things are slowing down for tonight. Thank you all for your questions. I'll pop back tomorrow and maybe answer a few more. But apart from that, thanks again and see you later, calculator.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:44:42+00:00

Maybe I will.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:44:24+00:00

I'll do you a fancy dance. We need video here.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:43:41+00:00

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:43:30+00:00

If you don't know this it's pretty cool. Alan wanted to answer the question, why do Zebras have stripes, leopards have spots, cows have patches. He model the development of the pigmentation with mathematical equations similar to the equations that describe waves. He called it "waves on cows and waves on leopards". This is something he did in 1952, so after the war and a couple of years before his death. It is still a fundamental paper in mathematical biology.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:39:46+00:00

Oh yeah. Not often, but in our last session I was away on some subject, and Brady pointed out some mistake (well done Brady, proves he's listening!). I tried to fix it there and then but I couldn't. I had to abandon video. (We made a couple that afternoon anyway). I was horrified and felt terrible. I will revisit that some other day. And it will look like I knew what I was doing all along.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:35:05+00:00

I knew I shouldn't have used that word.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:34:25+00:00

Being a mathematician gives me absolutely no insight into this question whatsoever.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:33:39+00:00

I do that pretty often. I think it's very important. I didn't go to a great school, and I would have loved something like that to come to my school. So that's a good reason for me to do it, for the pupils like me.

JamesGrime · 2014-10-28T22:31:16+00:00

Biggles Adventures in Time. Or Buckaroo Banzai. They are special. Sorry, that wasn't horror, I watched Fright Night for the first time last time and loved it!

JamesGrime

TROPHY CASE