Andrew Stacey

It is important to recognise that technical language (such as in use in mathematics) is designed to help *those already inside the subject*, and not those who are trying to get in. Learning proper terminology and learning proper concepts are not necessarily best done simultaneously. #UKMathsChat

You are smashing it with sign ups for this years cipherchallenge.org competition! Tomorrow at 3pm we launch the third practice challenge, then pause for the competition to start on Nov 5th. It's not too late to join the fun!

Even without the Tolkien quote, this is worth reading. #UKMathsChat

Having just read Craig Barton's latest on his descent into genAI, I found this a thought-provoking counterpoint. #UKMathsChat

Short thread asking @nytimes.com and other MSM to stop interviewing the same small handful of people every time something math-related comes up. Mathematicians are dismayed when AI scoops them on the results? How about look for advice from someone familiar with getting scooped and outpowered.

In #MathsToday, one class managed to derail the lesson for about half an hour by asking how to fairly divide two biscuits between five people. Of course we ended up with the cake cutting algorithms by way of the ham sandwich theorem. And they say maths isn't practical. #HoagieHomies #UKMathsChat

If you're in need of a restoration of faith in journalism after, say, reading an op-ed in the grauniad, may I recommend Ian Hislop on Have I Got News For You. Particularly the bit about AI and mathematics. Spot on. #HIGNFY #mathsky #UKMathsChat

No matter where you shop, you're getting screwed by Amazon. Amazon has found a way to make everything you buy - at Target, at a mom-and-pop shop, even direct from the manufacturer - more expensive. And they're not the only one: Expedia's done the same thing, but for hotel rooms.

This is really nice, and something to consider for an maths extension activity. Might use it for my next "Maths Conversation Class". #UKMathsChat #ALevelMaths #ITeachMaths

A-level Further Maths teachers: if you're looking for mechanics questions, look no further than NSW's Extension 1 and 2 exams. Mechanics without calculus is in Extension 1, with a strong emphasis on projectiles. Questions taken from the last four years of exams. #ALevelMaths

Shocked my further maths class in #MathsToday by writing: 157 -138 ----- 2 -1 They were decidedly not impressed. #ALevelMaths #UKMathsChat

It's now two years since I started writing observations of the world around me. I've made a second edition of my little book "What I noticed along the way" with all 431 observations. The journey has brought me such joy and I hope it brings you joy too. drive.google.com/file/d/11TUl...

Quoting out of context because I would love to live in the universe where that second sentence could be said with a straight face. Can anyone give me directions??

I wrote this 🔽 as a joke (and I'll probably have more to say later), but this 377-versus-372 discrepancy is actually representative of how incredibly rushed, sloppy and badly presented this package of results by OpenAI is, despite the company's enormous resources. •1/9

Just wondering whether OpenAI's actions (and their implications) have made it across to the mathematical education sphere. I'm reading a lot of reaction from higher education, not from secondary (or primary) and so am curious as to whether folks know #UKMathsChat #ITeachMaths #ALevelMaths #mathsky

This amused me.

#ALevelMaths Looking at iterative solutions to equations today, so I wrote this root finder in @desmos.com, utilising the Newton-Raphson method. r(a, n) uses n iterations starting at x=a to identify a root. #MathsToday www.desmos.com/calculator/4...

The thing I really don't like about trigonometry is always having to pick a side. #mathsky #ITeachMaths #UKMathsChat

TIL that paint doesn't actually dry, it polymerises.

I've got one copy of *The Mathematicians' Library* to give away in each of four languages: Polish, German, Japanese, and Spanish. I'm offering them for free (including UK postage) & I'd like them to go somewhere that'd make good use of them. If you think *your* organisation or group would...

Anyone making a slasher movie on the cheap and want a prop? Forgot to empty my pockets when putting my school clothes in the washer. #ITeachMaths

And then you go to Scandinavia and end up in all sorts of trouble.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I can't even ... so I won't! Instead, let's make this an alternative headline competition. I'll start: Farmer rounds down sheep, instead of rounding them up. #MathsToday #UKMathsChat #mathsky

When a weird bug crops up in one of my programs, I can enjoy (!) figuring out what happens and why, and then fix it. This is because I wrote the original code. I remember fixing a similar bug, so fixing this new one doesn't actually take too long.

Watched BBC's new quiz "The Wisdom of the Crowds". Big turn-offs for me: 1. The intro. The correct way to refer to him is "the *eugenicist* Francis Galton". Or, preferably, not at all. 2. The questions. No distinction as to which average was being used. #mathsky #UKMathsChat #ALevelMaths

"integrated blackboard" *sigh* I'm still trying to persuade the ret of the family that such a design would revolutionise our house.

I was unaware that pie charts had any strengths ...

This has provoked so many thoughts in my head, but the biggest of all is that this is what I want. Both for me and the mathematicians who come after me. #mathsky #ITeachMaths #UKMathsChat

And by that I don't just mean excluding cars from running competitions. People want to live in walkable cities. To walk to a grocery store, stop at a coffeehouse, sit down in a park. Less noise, less pollution. And a car stuck in rush hour traffic does not move very fast anyway.

I think the first step would be to recognize academic research more as work and less as a game. In work, there are professional standards for clarity, presentation, attribution, and responsibility to the community. This, again, is not a new problem, although AI does make it much worse.

Great questions! Definitely going to steal them.

I love open source! I'm glad when people download my papers and share them with collaborators. The normal kind of scholarly use. Not slop feeding in bulk. Maybe Creative Commons needs to have a CC-BY-NC-NS (No Slop) option.

Folding some origami cranes, I got curious as to whether they could be made to interlock to make a modular origami model. It's not a great lock, but it shows it works in principle: the head and tail of the crane are flattened and tuck into the wings of its neighbours. #origami #mathsky

mathematicians now feel like they have to be secretive about what they do in case it gets stolen by AI. graph theorists arent too worried about this though because they’ve already been doing discreet mathematics

Just realised today that the pigeonhole principle is not symmetric. You can put no pigeons in any number of pigeonholes, but you can't put a non-zero number of pigeons in no pigeonholes. #mathsky

Was just reminded of this figure i'd made in a paper from 2014. I like it. Illustrations of stone tools made by Neanderthals in SW Asia, some 55 thousand years ago. The darker the colour the later the flake removal in the sequence of preparation.

While I appreciate their eloquence, and agree with many of their take takes, when it comes to “AI and math” (or indeed anything), I wish people would listen a little less to Fields medalists and a little more to the ~99.95% of mathematicians who are NOT Fields medalists, … •1/4

New proof technique: Proof by Dobble loopspace.mathforge.org/CountingOnMy...

Applications for Warwick Mathematics Institute's prestigious Zeeman Lectureships for Early Career Researchers are now open. Two positions are available, so if you know of a fantastic ECR, please encourage them to apply! @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social #MathSky warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...