I discovered Vi Hart’s YouTube page initially (I think) via Velociranga. Sadly, we both promptly forgot to remember both the URL and her name, so for the next few weeks I was desperately trying to punch in keywords that seemed relevant to what she did in an attempt to track her down. It’s probably best [...]
Filed under: Maths | 1 Comment »
So, after a few brief diversions, let’s get back to talking about metric spaces. Now that we’ve got the concept of open sets out of the way, we’ll be able to talk about some more interesting properties. Today, we’ll be discussing the notion of connectedness. Much as was the case with open and closed sets, [...]
Filed under: Maths | No Comments »
So far, we’ve dealt with the motivation and definition of a metric space, and have also seen some standard examples. Pretty soon we’ll be moving onto different ways we can categorise metric spaces, but before we do that we’ll need to deal with a topic that is crucial to any kind of development: Open and [...]
Filed under: Maths | 2 Comments »
I mentioned that before we moved on to anything else, I’d chuck some examples of metric spaces out there. So…what are we waiting for? Let’s do this crazy thing.
Filed under: Maths | No Comments »
In everyday life, we take certain geometrical facts for granted. For example, that two parallel lines will never meet, or that given two points in space we can (theoretically) draw a straight line between them. These and other such common sense ideas form the basis of what is traditionally called Euclidean geometry; otherwise known as [...]
Filed under: Maths | No Comments »
While SWOTVAC (a.k.a. ‘almost exams’) is on, I have very little blogging time. As such, I’ve set up a few reposts of older pieces that recent readers may not have seen before. Enjoy! —– Obviously this post has been in the works for a little bit now, with minor delays due to university and the [...]
Filed under: Maths | 1 Comment »
Argh! This is it, folks — the last seminar of the semester (as next week we’ve got a trivia night planned instead)! You don’t want to miss out on this…so don’t! Same time and place as always: Details are below the fold… —————
Filed under: Events, Maths, MUMS | No Comments »
Oh, Jason Rosenhouse, how you make my maths sense tingle. He’s written up a beautiful, beautiful rant about all manner of things relating to how fractions are taught in school: And why is it that every kid, when learning how to add fractions, is told of the terrible things that occur upon failing to use [...]
Filed under: Maths | No Comments »
Reports have come in now that the mathematical giant Benoit Mandelbrot has died at age 85 after a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer. In launching what was basically an entirely new field of study (fractals), Mandelbrot had a distinction that very few mathematicians enjoy — and to his benefit he lived long enough to see [...]
Filed under: Announcements, Maths | No Comments »
Well — the end of semester is approaching fast, and with it the end of the MUMS Friday Events for 2010. This week is the second last seminar for the year, with Norm Do this week, followed by Paul Pearce next week and a trivia night the week after. I know about as much as [...]
Filed under: Events, Maths, MUMS | No Comments »
