Maths With Simi

Such a lovely testimonial from one of this year's students. Amazing student who was determined to succeeed but lacked in confidence. She just needed a little help understanding the AI HL course and figuring out what was being asked of her and she exceeded her own expectations 💜

I have a few online sessions available for KS3, GCSE and A level Maths in September. If your child needs support with Maths this year please do get in touch to discuss your exact requirements. You can send a DM or Whatsapp message using the button below.

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Some great movies here. How many have you watched?

16 Beautiful Math Movies That Everyone Should Watch at Least Once in Their Life The existential philosopher Merleau Ponty says, “Film is not thought, it is perceived.”

5th post on our Women in Mathematics Series

Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was the first major Russian female mathematician and a pioneer for women in mathematics around the world. She was the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe and was also one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor.

Despite her obvious talent for mathematics, she could not complete her education in Russia. At that time, women there were not allowed to attend universities. In order to study abroad, she needed written permission from her father (or husband). Together with her husband, she emigrated from Russia in 1867.

In Octoer 1870, she moved to Berlin, where she took private lessons with Karl Weierstrass, as the university would not even allow her to audit classes. In 1874 she presented three papers—on partial differential equations, on the dynamics of Saturn's rings and on elliptic integrals—to the University of Göttingen as her doctoral dissertation. With the support of Weierstrass, this earned her a doctorate in mathematics summa cm laude, bypassing the usual required lectures and examinations.

She thereby became the first woman in Europe to hold that degree. Her paper on partial differential equations contains what is now commonly known as the Cauchy–Kovalevskaya theorem, which gives conditions for the existence of solutions to a certain class of those equations.

6th post on our Women in Mathematics series

Maria Gaetana Agnesi - She was the first woman to write a mathematics handbook and the first woman appointed as a mathematics professor at a university. She is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus and was a member of the faculty at the University of Bologna, although she never served.

She also studied the curve - the witch of Agnesi - which has got her name by mistake actually (find out more: http://bit.ly/3c7fLBG)

Learning so much from this series! Also, just found a new podcast which is awesome - Infinitely Irrational 😊

4th post on Women in Mathematics series

Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet was a French natural philosopher and mathematician during the early 1730s. I totally recommend you check the Infinitely Irrational Math Podcast about Emilie du Chatelet: http://bit.ly/3lcItno

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Pi Day is an annual opportunity for math enthusiasts to recite the infinite digits of Pi, talk to their friends about math, and to eat pie.

Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point. As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. While only a handful of digits are needed for typical calculations, Pi’s infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits.

3rd post on Women in Mathematics series

Fan Chung became interested in mathematics from an early age at school in Taiwan. She graduated the National Taiwan University with a B.S. in mathematics and went on to the University of Pennsylvania to pursue a career in mathematics. There she obtained the highest score in the qualifying exam by a wide margin. Her doctoral advisor suggested Ramsey Theory as a subject she could work on. During a single week studying material Chung had come up with new proofs for established results in the field. Chung was awarded a M.S. in 1972 and a Ph.D. two years later. She worked for 20 years at Bell Laboratories and Bellcore, then she decided to go back University of Pennsylvania to become a professor of mathematics. In 1998, she was named Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at University of California, San Diego. To date, she has over 200 publications to her name.

Really enjoying this Women in Mathematics series- it's great to learn more about these amazing women :)

2nd post on Women in Mathematics series

Marjorie Lee Browne was a noted mathematics educator. She was one of the first African-American women to receive a Ph.D in mathematics. After receiving her doctorate, Browne was unable to keep a teaching position at a research institution. As a result of this she worked with secondary school mathematics teachers, instructing them in "modern math." She focused especially on encouraging math education for minorities and women.

Browne's work on classical groups demonstrated simple proofs of important topological properties of and relations between classical groups. Her work in general focused on linear and matrix algebra.

Throughout her career, Browne worked to help gifted mathematics students, educating them and offering them financial support to pursue higher education. In 1974 she was awarded the first W. W. Rankin Memorial Award from the North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics for her work with mathematics education.

1st post on this Women in Mathematics series

Phoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton, born on 28 April 1854, was a British engineer, mathematician, physicist, and inventor.

She attended Girton College, Cambridge where she studied mathematics. In 1880, Ayrton passed the Mathematical Tripos (the taught mathematics course in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge) but was not granted a degree because, at this time, Cambridge gave only certificates and not degrees to women. She successfully completed an external examination and received a B.Sc. degree from the University of London in 1881.

Upon her return to London, Ayrton earned money by teaching and embroidery. She put her mathematical skills to practical use – she taught at Notting Hill and Ealing High School, and was also active in devising and solving mathematical problems, many of which were published in "Mathematical Questions and Their Solutions" from the Educational Times. In 1884 Ayrton patented a line-divider, an engineering drawing instrument for dividing a line into any number of equal parts and for enlarging and reducing figures.The line-divider was her first major invention and, while its primary use was likely to be for artists for enlarging and diminishing, it was also useful to architects and engineers. Ayrton's 1884 patent was the first of many – from 1884 until her death, Hertha registered 26 patents: five on mathematical dividers, 13 on arc lamps and electrodes, the rest on the propulsion of air. She was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water.

Have you ever wondered what the maths is in stirring a cup of tea? Well, Professor Sir Martin Hairer from Imperial College did just that by applying complex maths to simple situations and he won the 2021 Breakthrough Prize for Mathematics winning a cool £2.3 million for his work!!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-54195597?fbclid=IwAR2135zRxxpfhfGLud7p8wP_bk22gbslaK1CV60rtp56i37i9cV2Jf7K0u

The maths of stirring a cup of tea A professor has won £2.3m for applying complex maths to simple situations - like stirring tea.

New video: Factorising Quadratics using Lyszkowski's Method

This video shows an example of how to factorise a non-monic quadratic expression using the Lyszkowski's method. Such an easy method. Whilst I was researching this I came across it called Howell's method on geomaths.co.uk which is why that name is also used in the video.

https://youtu.be/8Xv9qLkrkaU

Factorising Quadratic Expressons - Lyszkowski Method This video shows an example of how to factorise a non-monic quadratic expression using the Lyszkowski's method. When I was researching this I cam across it c...

🥞🥞The Maths of Flipping Pancakes 🥞🥞

As it's Pancake day I thought it would be a good time to take a look at "The Pancake Problem" which was written by mathematician Jacob Goodman in 1975 and published in American Mathematical Monthly.

The problem posed was about Harry Dweighter, a harried waiter, who finds himself with a pile of pancakes coming out of the kitchen: How many movements at most does he have to make to leave the pancakes perfectly ordered?

This problem grabbed the attention of mathematicians and computer scientists as it seems like a simple problem but increases in complexity quickly as the number of pancakes in the stack increases.

To learn more about this problem and Pancake Numbers from this Numberphile video from Katie Steckles: https://youtu.be/m3drS_8BpU0

Pancake Numbers - Numberphile Katie Steckles on Pancake Numbers..Signup for your FREE trial to The Great Courses Plus here: http://ow.ly/EJwH30fiZ1dMore links & stuff in full description ...