Double Maths First Thing: Issue 6E

Double Maths First Thing had to look up where Wells is Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread the joy and delight in the beauty of maths, and the human effort of figuring things out. This week I’ve been taking joy in simplifying and clarifying code that wasn’t quite right last time it was deployed. With a bit of space and distance, I was able to see a neater way of dealing with the edge cases and – even better – a neater way of explaining what was going on. Meanwhile, everyone has been begging, begging me to share videos of the Pseudorandom Ensemble’s triumphant show at MathsWorld. Sam Hartburn has been diligently putting clips together. Correspondence from .mau., who reports that the Italian for puzzle is rompicapo – like in French, “breaking the head”. I suppose “brainteaser”, “mind-bender” and “head-scratcher” are the closest English equivalents. Links Margaret Hamilton has died, aged 90. It genuinely hadn’t occurred to me that she might still be…