history
8 October 2018
Mathematics is powerful The message of the moment is that Mathematics is beautiful and mathematics is playful. In my social media bubble of mathematics teachers the over-riding picture is of the joy of mathematics. I see puzzles and brainteasers aplenty on Facebook and Twitter. Mathematics educators strive to dispel the cloud of pain and drill that surrounds maths for far too many people. This site and our social enterprise are called Creative Maths, because we wish to create a world of mathematicians. The joy of maths is a wonderful message, that resonates with people like me, who already love maths. […]
5 June 2012
Blogs are by their nature, personal. Today’s blog is even more personal as I tell of my life with Operations Research and the demise of OR at UC. I love Operations Research. It was love at first sight, and though I now teach statistics, it is with an attitude strongly shaped by Operations Research. At school I loved maths. And I was good at it. I captained a team that won the city “Cantamath” competition two years running in the early 1970s. In high school I had a great maths teacher who let me be an assistant to the others […]
15 March 2012
Causation is a seductive notion. We want to make meaning out of our world. I love playing “the beeping nose” with little children. I press their nose and it beeps. I press my nose and it whirrs. It fascinates them. They have discovered cause and effect. They can make cool sounds by pressing noses. You can keep them amused for quite some time. Cause and effect implies control. If we know what causes things we are better able to control them. Scientific endeavor is largely a search for causes. History is littered with examples of misplaced cause and effect theories. […]