Just keep swimming
Those of us who partake in open air swimming should be allowed to return to this miraculous prophylactic, despite the semi-lockdown. The Critic, 12 November 2020.
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US Election History — a personal view
Recollections about elections from the post-Vietnam era when I first went to America, and their relevance today. The Article, 11 November 2020.
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The man behind the Monster
The man who first glimpsed the Monster has died. He came to this vision via very precise arguments, but later had to fight German students who wanted to cancel his branch of mathematics. We need his type again to fight the new battle against those who would turn mathematics from careful argument and precision to woolliness and confusion. The Critic 24 August 2020.
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Decolonise … maths?
If ‘decolonising maths’ means reassessing who did what, we need to put Greek geometry into perspective. Who invented algebra? And for modern arithmetic we have to thank the Sumerians, whose ethnicity and skin colour remains conveniently unknown. My article in The Critic, 7 July 2020
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Dark Matters
Academics in this country need to allow new ideas rather than orthodoxy and group-think. See my article in The Critic on 22 June 2020 about the dis-invitation of a physicist who was scheduled to give a technical talk.
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The mathematician and the Monster: a tribute to John Horton Conway
My tribute to the extraordinarily creative mathematician John Horton Conway. Originally from Liverpool, he died on 11 April, aged 82. Published in The Article, 16 April, 2020.
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Full Circle
The long history of why there are 360 degrees in a circle. The short answer is that it was due to the Babylonians. History Today, 23 March 2020.
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