/podcasts/wbu53.mp3

In this month’s episode of Wrong But Useful (#53), brought to you by the power of Lemsip and a day in bed, Colin and Dave are joined by Special Guest Co-Hosts @sean_jamshidi and #NikiWithoutTwitter, who are Sean Jamshidi and Niki Kalaydzhieva from Chalkdust Magazine ((It’s a magazine for the mathematically curious, apparently.)) in real life.

  • Niki is an analytical number theorist with an interest in outreach; Sean studies oceanic fluid dynamics.
  • We beat our own world record for the most shambolic number of the podcast. It’s 5,830, the sum of the first 53 primes and $53 \times 110$; this will be the last such number until episode 853.
  • Colin and Niki have both read @vickymaths1729’s Closing The Gap and loved it. We talk about the Polymath projects.
  • Niki claims Chalkdust ((A magazine for the mathematically curious)) is the best maths magazine ever, which is off-script. Sean and Niki are (at the time of recording) putting Issue 7 together, due out 2018 March 13.
  • The ICM is happening in Brazil this year; we have several suggestions for improving the Fields Medal. Niki mentions Chalkdust Magazine ((A magazine for the mathematically curious)) and their interviews with various laureates.
  • Niki and Sean did fantastic work in October on Black Mathematicians Month. We mention an article by Jonathan Farley. Sean mentions @minoritySTEM; also, @alomshaha is interested to hear from anyone interested in Black History Month.
  • Dave brings up superpermutations. Niki brings a theorem! Colin messes up simple arithmetic. Lovely example of something that starts off in a nice sequence, then breaks; it continues in a different nice sequence, then breaks that. Credit to a Numberphile video.
  • We had e Day on 2/7/18 (US style) and how we write dates and addresses backwards. XKCD and the ISO agree with Colin. Chalkdust ((A magazine for the mathematically curious)) comes out on $\pi$ Eve.
  • A post by @mathsjem about Victorian vocabulary.
  • Were Venn diagrams banned under the junta in Argentina?
  • Last month’s puzzle: A gold star for @chrishazell72 for finding the three holes in @stecks’s bit of paper.
  • This month’s puzzle, via @panlepan: What is the smallest positive integer that doubles when its final digit is moved to the front? (For example, 1729 becomes 9172 when its final digit is moved to the front, but 9172 isn’t double 1729.)
  • Niki and Sean remind everyone that Issue 7 of Chalkdust ((A magazine for the mathematically curious)) is due out the day before Pi Day, 2018-03-13.
  • We manage to make a shambles of the completely spontaneous ending, too!