iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 3h

TIL that paint doesn't actually dry, it polymerises.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 28/09/2026

Meanwhile, kids in Norway go round with SENK FARTEN emblazoned on their rucksacks.

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Reposted by Andrew Stacey

Tommaths (he/him) @teakayb.mathsy.space · 26/09/2026

I've got one copy of *The Mathematicians' Library* to give away in each of four languages: Polish, German, Japanese, and Spanish. I'm offering them for free (including UK postage) & I'd like them to go somewhere that'd make good use of them. If you think *your* organisation or group would...

$Four editions of The Mathematicians’ Library are arranged on a patterned surface: the Polish edition, German edition, Japanese edition and Spanish edition. The Polish and Spanish covers feature a Renaissance-style astronomical diagram with a Vitruvian figure, while the German edition has a vivid purple-and-pink fractal design and the Japanese edition shows colourful abstract mathematical forms.$

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 24/09/2026

Anyone making a slasher movie on the cheap and want a prop? Forgot to empty my pockets when putting my school clothes in the washer. #ITeachMaths

A towel with mysterious red marks on it, that could be blood but are more likely to be from the red pen I accidentally put in the washing machine.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 24/09/2026

And then you go to Scandinavia and end up in all sorts of trouble.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 24/09/2026

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I can't even ... so I won't! Instead, let's make this an alternative headline competition. I'll start: Farmer rounds down sheep, instead of rounding them up. #MathsToday #UKMathsChat #mathsky

bbc.co.uk

Jeremy Clarkson's sheep 'theft' turns out to be miscount on farm

Jeremy Clarkson reported the theft of sheep from his Diddly Squat Farm to police earlier this month.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 24/09/2026

A book. I saw a brilliant demo by @jsellenberg.bsky.social that just used a book and got the point across very well.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 23/09/2026

When a weird bug crops up in one of my programs, I can enjoy (!) figuring out what happens and why, and then fix it. This is because I wrote the original code. I remember fixing a similar bug, so fixing this new one doesn't actually take too long.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 22/09/2026

Fake news. Everyone knows Daleks are from Norway.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 20/09/2026

Watched BBC's new quiz "The Wisdom of the Crowds". Big turn-offs for me: 1. The intro. The correct way to refer to him is "the *eugenicist* Francis Galton". Or, preferably, not at all. 2. The questions. No distinction as to which average was being used. #mathsky #UKMathsChat #ALevelMaths

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 20/09/2026

www.maths.ox.ac.uk/study-here/u... Take the first actual TMUA question (scroll down a fair bit). It involves a definite integral of a fairly unspecified function. I think that sketching possibilities is quicker than working through the algebra.

maths.ox.ac.uk

Integration | Mathematical Institute

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 18/09/2026

"integrated blackboard" *sigh* I'm still trying to persuade the ret of the family that such a design would revolutionise our house.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 18/09/2026

Shows how good my memory is. I would have cycled pat that every day. But I think it was the university Arms back then.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 18/09/2026

"specially" Long day, no lunch :sad face:

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 18/09/2026

I'd even bought the bread dpevially the night before!

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 18/09/2026

Yeah, I mean - where even is the City Arms in Oxford?? It does not sound like a pub that should be on anyone's list ...

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 18/09/2026

This has been sitting in my mind today. As a first approximation to an answer, I would say to look for how well-specified everything in the question is. If things are a bit vague or generic, go graphical. If precise, go algebraic.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 18/09/2026

I forgot my lunch today and was Not Happy about it.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 16/09/2026

Please don't call it that. Call it a "binomial board".

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 16/09/2026

I was unaware that pie charts had any strengths ...

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 15/09/2026

And all the issues that we couldn't figure out with publishing will rear their ugly heads here, and so many of them are to do with privilege and which voices get heard. But maybe this time we'll get it right. Maybe.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 15/09/2026

Within mathematics (and the above applies not just to mathematics) then I can't say I'm too hopeful that we'll do that. After all, we've known about Reed Elsevier for decades now and we haven't managed to say it to them.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 15/09/2026

So the first step in figuring out the new normal is to say to those companies, "Thanks, but no thanks. Let *us* figure out what we want and then we'll get back to you. You might have a role in it, but if so it'll be on our terms, not yours."

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 15/09/2026

Namely, that genAI is doing to us what climate change is doing to the world, and while it might be possible to figure out a new normal in which we can still have a reasonable existence, the presence of "big business" in the mix makes that nigh on impossible.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 15/09/2026

I'm reading "This Changes Everything" by Naomi Klein. The central tenet is that captialism works against our efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change. It feels remarkably applicable to current AI-ffairs.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 15/09/2026

This has provoked so many thoughts in my head, but the biggest of all is that this is what I want. Both for me and the mathematicians who come after me. #mathsky #ITeachMaths #UKMathsChat

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Reposted by Andrew Stacey

Izabella Laba 🇨🇦 @ijlaba.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

And by that I don't just mean excluding cars from running competitions. People want to live in walkable cities. To walk to a grocery store, stop at a coffeehouse, sit down in a park. Less noise, less pollution. And a car stuck in rush hour traffic does not move very fast anyway.

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Reposted by Andrew Stacey

Izabella Laba 🇨🇦 @ijlaba.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I think the first step would be to recognize academic research more as work and less as a game. In work, there are professional standards for clarity, presentation, attribution, and responsibility to the community. This, again, is not a new problem, although AI does make it much worse.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 15/09/2026

Great questions! Definitely going to steal them.

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Izabella Laba 🇨🇦 @ijlaba.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I love open source! I'm glad when people download my papers and share them with collaborators. The normal kind of scholarly use. Not slop feeding in bulk. Maybe Creative Commons needs to have a CC-BY-NC-NS (No Slop) option.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 14/09/2026

Folding some origami cranes, I got curious as to whether they could be made to interlock to make a modular origami model. It's not a great lock, but it shows it works in principle: the head and tail of the crane are flattened and tuck into the wings of its neighbours. #origami #mathsky

A modular origami model, where the model is based on the crane. The beak and tail interlock with the wings of its neighbours. Tgis model has six modules, so exhibits cubical symmetry.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 14/09/2026

Maybe it's a geographical thing?? I'm "every day" as well, and have no idea what "gen" I am, but am geographically near Helen.

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Reposted by Andrew Stacey

nat alison @tesseralis.site · 10/09/2026

mathematicians now feel like they have to be secretive about what they do in case it gets stolen by AI. graph theorists arent too worried about this though because they’ve already been doing discreet mathematics

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 09/09/2026

Just realised today that the pigeonhole principle is not symmetric. You can put no pigeons in any number of pigeonholes, but you can't put a non-zero number of pigeons in no pigeonholes. #mathsky

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Reposted by Andrew Stacey

Dr Huw Groucutt @huwgroucutt.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Was just reminded of this figure i'd made in a paper from 2014. I like it. Illustrations of stone tools made by Neanderthals in SW Asia, some 55 thousand years ago. The darker the colour the later the flake removal in the sequence of preparation.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 06/09/2026

> I can even write from the back of the classroom! The benefits of the ability to wander the room while writing were something I didn't anticipate, but now would not relinquish without a serious tussle.

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Reposted by Andrew Stacey

Gro-Tsen @gro-tsen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

While I appreciate their eloquence, and agree with many of their take takes, when it comes to “AI and math” (or indeed anything), I wish people would listen a little less to Fields medalists and a little more to the ~99.95% of mathematicians who are NOT Fields medalists, … •1/4

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 03/09/2026

Did that match what you wanted? Just checking since if not, I'll happily add a new layout to the predefined set - regardless of whether you yourself use it then the fact that you tried suggests a need for it.

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 02/09/2026

\documentclass{article} \usepackage[landscape]{geometry} \usepackage{pgfmorepages} \pgfmorepagesloadextralayouts \pgfpagesuselayout{repeated 2-up} \usepackage{lipsum} \begin{document} \lipsum* \end{document}

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 02/09/2026

So today, I created seating plans for my school in Google Sheets. Each teacher gets a spreadsheet with tabs for each class and room, these have a layout of the room with a class list, and they then assign the students to desks. #ExcelToday

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 02/09/2026

Thought I'd check before contributing!

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 02/09/2026

Am I allowed to contribute stuff with Google Sheets?

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 02/09/2026

pgfmorepages definitely can do this, but if it doesn't have a predefined layout for it then that's only because no-one's asked for it before. Is the aim that the original document is in landscape, and then you want that 2-up? Sort of: [___] [___] ?

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 31/08/2026

Ludwig^1: There's too many variables! Mathematicians: hold my beer. ^1: Latest TV detective, who is a newspaper puzzle setter and is based in Cambridge. This tells you all you need to know.

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Reposted by Andrew Stacey

Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 31/08/2026

New proof technique: Proof by Dobble loopspace.mathforge.org/CountingOnMy...

loopspace.mathforge.org

Proof By Dobble

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 31/08/2026

New proof technique: Proof by Dobble loopspace.mathforge.org/CountingOnMy...

loopspace.mathforge.org

Proof By Dobble

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Andrew Stacey @mathforge.org · 31/08/2026

Haven't come across them before. We've been enjoying some from BBC Sounds. Most recently one hosted by Sue Perkins (of Mel&Sue and Bake-Off fame) about someone going from town to town assuming new identities.

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