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Peter Rowlett

@peterrowlett.net
2.2K followers 2.4K following 320 posts

I teach maths and computing at a UK university and work as a maths communicator. Sheffield/Nottingham based. Editor, The Mathematical Gazette. Aperiodical blog, Mathematical Objects podcast. Part of finitegroup.co.uk peterrowlett.net

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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 27/09/2026
Such a wonderful time-saver and great research tool, these #genAI chatbots. 🙄
Anonymized by DuckDuckGo. Zero data retention for this chat. No AI training.
where do you get the date 14 October from? I can't see it in any of the links given
GPT-5.6 Luna: 
You’re right—you can’t see it because 14 October was unsupported. I incorrectly presented a specific date that wasn’t stated in the available sources.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 24/08/2026
Went to the Boole memorial in Lincoln. Boole is teaching two children some logic. One has a slate labelled “ALICIA”, his daughter’s name. Any ideas why the other is labelled “TAD”? (It amused me that while Tad is copying from the board, Alicia, who became a 4D geometer, is drawing some geometry.)
Statues. Boole stands by a blackboard before two children who are writing on slates. Slate labelled TAD, a hand draws x=x^2.Slate labelled ALICIA, hand drawing lines.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 05/08/2026
The new issue of The Mathematical Gazette has arrived! My second as editor. 😁 My editorial discusses what the journal is about and who reads it. It and six other articles from the issue are free to read online here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/tmgz20/1... @amiemathematics.bsky.social
Issue of The Mathematical Gazette on an envelope. Volume 110, number 576, July 2026.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 27/07/2026
You can trust quality that’s built on careful attention to detail.
Orange cardboard box labelled “White board erasers”. Slogan on the side reads “Quality mades the difference”.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 23/07/2026
I continue to wonder about utility of #genAI. I gave Claude some text I wrote and asked it to find and add suitable references. In the response it gave some warnings that straight-up assumed I am a student cheating on an assignment. 🤯
The Birmingham and Liverpool items are institutional web guides/case studies rather than peer-reviewed articles (hence the "n.d." and author uncertainty on the Birmingham one) — check your assignment allows practice-based/grey literature, or swap in a peer-reviewed equivalent if not.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 19/07/2026
My son got a calculator for secondary school in the autumn, so we took it for a test. He drew a series of triangles and measured the sides, then worked out their ratios and plotted them. Then we tried some other buttons on the calculator and discovered sin, cos and tan make the same values! #tmwyk
Table of values - ratios of triangle sides and sin, cos and tan, for angles 10, 20 up to 70. These are plotted.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 10/07/2026
Take note, everyone.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 03/07/2026
What is The Mathematical Gazette about? Who is it for? I discuss this, drawing on words from previous editors, in my editorial for the new issue. Free to access here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
What is it about?

The Gazette publishes mathematical content, including new results. However, it is not simply a minor mathematics research journal. It is not the venue for your proof of a result that has been rejected from a research journal as too obscure or uninteresting.

Equally, though it is focussed on teaching, it is not an educational research journal. It is not the right place for the results of your randomised controlled trial of a new teaching innovation.

Mathematical expositions and meditations on teaching should exhibit something more to make them suitable for the Gazette. I was pleased to see this issue addressed by Alan Broadbent in 1965: ‘our field is not that of mathematics alone, nor that of teaching alone; it is the combination, the teaching of mathematics’.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 02/07/2026
What on earth happened here? This is earlier today. I was at a bus stop in a village about 7.5 miles from Nottingham and asked Google Maps for public transport directions to Nottingham.
Directions start by getting a Bolt for 21 minutes 7.4 miles to Nottingham railway station, then getting the train towards Leicester.Get the train for 16 mins to East Midlands Parkway, then walk for 3 hours 25 minutes (9.3 miles) to Nottingham.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 11/06/2026
Maths on Holiday - new issue of the IMA members’ magazine, in which I wrote about David Singmaster’s Gazeteer, Green’s Windmill, that time Sam Hansen came to town, etc.
Mathematics Today magazine Maths on Holiday Special Issue.Mathematical Gazetteer of the British Isles
Peter Rowlett Math FIMA, Sheffield Hallam University
What do you do to find places to visit when travelling? Consult a guidebook? Search Google Maps? Look at reviews on TripAdvisor?
Early in my career, when I used to travel a lot to visit universities around the UK, I would often look up the places I was visiting in the Mathematical Gazetteer of the British Isles. This is an alphabetical listing of place names, and each has some information about mathematical places of interest and the mathematicians who were born, died, worked or visited there.
These were collected and published by the late David Singmaster in the BSHM Newsletter of the British Society for the History of Mathematics. Singmaster explained that he had been collecting information 'for some years' already by the time of the first publication [1]. The series was published in 18 parts from
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 08/06/2026
Quick update from #BeachSpectres from @ayliean.bsky.social - join Finite Group for free to access the video. patreon.com/posts/beach-...
Ayliean on beach next to board that says “Aperiodic Monotile!” She’s saying “Hello, Finite Group”.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 06/05/2026
Just spotted a new edition of the Comprehensive LaTeX Symbols List has been published and it contains my package customdice! ctan.org/pkg/comprehe...
customdice entry, table 719 in the link.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 30/04/2026
Went to Green’s Windmill this evening for a members’ event. All wrapped up for major repairs to redo the cap and sails. Visitor numbers understandably down this year. Donations to help welcome: www.greensmill.org.uk/support-us/d...
Windmill covered in scaffolding. Windmill covered in scaffolding.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 13/04/2026
I’m on my way to give a talk to Sheffield U3A’s Science & Technology Group, about board games through the ages with a bit of game theory thrown in.
Games and their analysis from prehistory to today, Peter Rowlett, Sheffield Hallam University. Tomb wall illustration of an Egyptian queen playing a board game.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 07/04/2026
The first issue of The Mathematical Gazette with me as Editor has arrived in the post! Non-subscribers can read my editorial (and some other papers in this issue) for free at www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #MathsToday #MTBoS #ITeachMath
First inside pages of the issue, showing the editorial board, information about the journal and the opening of the editorial.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 18/03/2026
The Gazette has been continuously published since 1894. A history was published in 1996 and now, 30 years later, I'm really pleased my student Amelia Curran has written a new history covering 1894-2025. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Editors of The Mathematical Gazette, 1894-2025. Table A1 in the linked paper.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 30/01/2026
Pick up a copy of New Scientist this weekend, or go to the website (subscription or via your library), and you’ll find me writing about Snakes and Ladders and analysis of games of chance.
Mathematics of life
Reaching the top
While snakes and ladders is purely a game of chance, there is a way to bring strategy into it, says mathematician Peter Rowlett
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 18/01/2026
What’s your answer here? My son got it from school. He said 65. Very boring! I was wondering about 20π. #MathsToday
Write a number in the box to make this correct. 3/5 < box over 100 < 0.7
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 13/01/2026
The claim that "just about everyone overestimates their own ability to use everyday numbers" (p.19) which the Telegraph picks up on, is interesting. It refers to this graphic. 40% scored high/very high cf. 60% who thought they would, a pattern across all demographics. Is that "just about everyone"?
Figure shows a gap between reported competence (those who score high or very high on the numerical competence index) and those who rated their competence 4 or 5 on a likert scale. Reported is around 60% and actual around 40% across a range of demographic groups.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 21/12/2025
I wrote a puzzle in today’s Sunday Times. Also on the last page of this PDF: extras.thetimes.co.uk/web/public/p...
Teaser 3300
Peter Rowlett
A Faulty Bet
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 11/12/2025
"Editor's Choice" 👀 Our paper exploring whether engineering students prefer maths problems in context or not is in the new issue of Teaching Mathematics and its Applications. doi.org/10.1093/team...
Editor's Choice
On the value of context in engineering mathematics problems: students’ perspectives
Patrick Johnson and others
Teaching Mathematics and its Applications: An International Journal of the IMA, Volume 44, Issue 4, December 2025, Pages 311–326
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 03/12/2025
I don’t know how these simple calculators work. My son has noticed if he repeatedly square roots, say, 0.7734 it converges on 0.9999998 but then just sits there. Why does it think √0.9999998=0.9999998?
Simple calculator with 0.9999998 on screen.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 01/12/2025
“It's nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened…” Time for the famous @mscroggs.co.uk www.mscroggs.co.uk advent calendar! Good fun — but am I too busy, or will I keep it going this year? Only time will tell!
Unopened advent calendar at the link given. Big picture of iced Christmas biscuits with a series of numbered doors.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 21/11/2025
At work I’m greeted by the @chalkdustmag.bsky.social with my article in, to learn I’m one of the items listed on the cover - above Taylor Swift (but below microbes)!
Article ‘How many tiles does this game have?’ by Peter Rowlett, along with cover listing, among other things, ‘Game tiles: what’s missing?’
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 07/11/2025
Oh no
The word dodecahedron is underlined as misspelled, the correction suggestion is rhododendron.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 02/11/2025
My son, everybody. #tmwyk #MathsToday
Question is Shade 1/5 of the shape blue. A rectangle is divided into ten equal parts by one horizontal divide and four vertical ones. Two parts are shaded: top right and bottom left. Similarly, 3/4 of an eight-part rectangle is shaded irregularly.Shade shape B so both shapes have an equal amount shaded. Shape A is a rectangle divided into three by two horizontal lines, the top two are shaded. Shape B is a similar rectangle with nine regions, shaded irregularly.Similarly, half of 16 regions are shaded irregularly.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 10/10/2025
It’s Mathematics of Life week at New Scientist and my turn to write. I wrote about game theory and the evolution of cooperation in the iterative prisoner’s dilemma. In the magazine this weekend or on the website/app.
Mathematics of life
Play nicely
How did cooperation emerge in a cut-throat world? There are clues in the prisoner's dilemma experiment, says Peter Rowlett
It is a dog-eat-dog world. Everyone for themselves, no matter the cost.
If so, how would a behaviour like cooperation ever emerge?
From evolutionary biology to international diplomacy, we can model many situations using so-called game theory. These games have actions or strategies available to each participant, plus payoffs, which are positive or negative values that each player gains or loses from each outcome.
Some games are "zero-sum", where one player's gain is equal to another's loss. Some aren't.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 09/10/2025
When I woke, my son greeted me with a proposed counterexample to the Four Colour Theorem. He said he’d woken with the idea. 1/2 #tmwyk
A big outer green region. Inside this effectively a line of squares: brown, blue, then one that’s vertically separated half grey, half dark green, then brown, then blue.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 08/10/2025
Came home to find the MA’s Mathematical Angles, which includes a spread about me taking over as editor of The Mathematical Gazette.
Two pages including an announcement about me being the next editor of The Mathematical Gazette and a call for peer reviewers.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 24/09/2025
Tomorrow at 12 UK time is the latest Finite Group livestream - Katie @steckl.es and Hana Ayoob on maths of colour. I will be teaching, but there will be a recording available afterwards. Join to take part or watch later: finitegroup.co.uk
25th September, 12-1pm BST
Maths of Colour Katie Steckles & Hana Ayoob
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 22/09/2025
Lovely day for it.
University buildings, trees and blue sky.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 18/09/2025
Just found out Academia edu has taken it upon itself to copy one of my open access papers to its site and then used "our AI" to generate a podcast based on the paper. They've added this to settings and it was on by default, which is extremely yuck. Also "AI-generated reviews"? Of my papers? Why?
AI-enhanced Outputs

Control how AI uses your research across Academia.edu.
AI-enhanced outputs: Disabled

AI Features are disabled for your account.

Your uploaded works are not eligible for:

    AI-generated reviews
    AI-generated podcasts
    AI-generated key takeaways
    AI-generated abstracts
    AI-generated FAQs
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 01/08/2025
I wrote about Mary Everest Boole’s curve stitching, string art, and Bézier curves in this weekend’s New Scientist.
Mathematics of life
A creative curve
What have holey cards and a ball of string got to do with geometry? Let's make "string art" and find out, says Peter Rowlett
When she was young, Mary Everest Boole found some cards with evenly spaced holes around the edges. She laced a thread from each hole to the one opposite, covering the card with lines that crossed in the middle. When she tried connecting each hole to one not exactly opposite, she was delighted to find the threads left a symmetric curve in the middle of the card. She felt this activity gave her an intuition that helped her learn formal geometry.
Years later, in 1864, she was widowed with five children.Even though the academic system didn't value the contributions of women, she worked as a librarian and maths tutor in London.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 06/07/2025
I haven't logged into Twitter/X for ages, but I wanted to view some replies on an ancient tweet so did it. There was one thing in my notifications and it's this beautiful mixture of Bitcoin and generative AI nonsense, happily reinforcing that what I've been missing isn't worth having.
A tweet about Bitcoin, to which someone has replied asking Perplexity to tag 15 prominent mathematicians, which includes me.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 06/07/2025
Here goes, wish me luck!
Find A Grave contact form. 
I am writing to report an incorrect photo. I contacted the account which added it over a month ago and have not had a response.
There is a picture of the wrong George Green on this page:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20882/george-green
The memorial page is for George Green (1793-1841) of Sneinton, Nottingham, UK, of whom no picture exists, for example his biographer D.M. Cannell says "the sad truth is, we have very little direct or first-hand information about him. We do not know what he looked like" (George Green: Miller and Mathematician 1793–1841, Nottingham: Green’s Windmill Trust, 2nd edition. 2017, p. 17).
The picture is actually of George Bernard Green (1822-1863) of New York and Arkansas, and is included correctly here:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13638561/george_bernard-green
I believe this is the right Green because the picture was uploaded by Jaimee Hedlund who claims to be a descendent.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 03/07/2025
There is a picture of George Green, the mathematician from Nottingham, doing the rounds on the internet. Alas, this is not the right George Green. Details: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1... #MathsHistory #MathsHist #MathsToday
Pictures of George Green of Sneinton
There is no picture of George Green of Sneinton. Cannell, who spent years looking at various archives of letters and other documents, reports (Cannell 2017, 17)
the sad truth is, we have very little direct or first-hand information about him. We do not know what he looked like.
Figure includes a picture of Figure 1. George Barnard Green (1822-1863) of Adams County, Wisconsin.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 27/06/2025
“The most mind-bending concepts in science” 
👀
New Scientist HOW TO THINK ABOUT
12 of the most mind-bending concepts in science
Quantum superposition
The anthropic principle
Animal consciousness
Quantum computing
Geoengineering Quasiparticles Metaphysics
Friendship Language
Symbiosis Geometry
MindsetClose up on “Geometry”
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 18/06/2025
I'm chatting maths and games with @jamesgrime.com next Wed 25th June 2-3pm BST. Sign up at finitegroup.co.uk#join Either join a paid tier to watch live or join for free & get the option to pay one-off for the recording. Either way gets you into our Discord chat community, a lovely place to be.
Finite Group Livestream: 25th June, 2-3pm BST. Games Time with James Grime.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 14/06/2025
This afternoon we made the pattern on a Lego board and he picked some rules. We used red/pink bricks for alive cells. We made a few iterations until we ran out of time. #tmwyk #MathsToday
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 14/06/2025
When was the last time we talked about cellular automata? Months, maybe a year. Anyway, as we came out of a shop earlier, my son said “would the Game of Life be different if it was played on rectangles?” It turns out he was thinking about the floor we were on. So… (next post) #tmwyk #MathsToday
Herringbone brick paving.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 05/06/2025
Counting sure is hard, Amazon. (Both 1s and the -1 all go to the first page when clicked, and subsequent numbers are boringly sequential.)
Next and previous page buttons numbered 1, -1, 1, 2, 3, ..., 272.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 01/06/2025
The top of our vacuum cleaner has this on it, which is fascinating as a set of weird data communication choices.
Bottom says 22:21. Above is a bar chart with four bars. Horizontal axis is µm and goes >10, >60, >180, >500. The heights are labelled: first bar 202 billion, second 4.2M, third not labelled, fourth 2.1K. The first bar is about three times the height of the others, which are all about the same.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 30/05/2025
Hello Google, George Green Snr built the windmill 12 years before Queen Victoria was born, and he died 8 years before she took the throne.
Google Maps item: Green’s Windmill and Science Centre. Victorian windmill & kids’ learning zone.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 22/05/2025
Looks like the grass needs cutting. I wrote about scheduling in this week’s New Scientist — available on the website and currently in shops.
Mathematics of life
What a chore
Should you mow the lawn first or cut the hedge? A handy piece of maths can help with organising tasks, says Peter Rowlett

Scheduling household chores is hard. Say you have three loads of washing: a regular load that will take 110 minutes to wash and 120 to dry; a heavily soiled load that needs an extra 30 minutes to wash; and a sensitive one that will take 130 minutes to wash and 160 to dry. In which order do you wash them?

In the branch of applied maths known as operational research, this is called a two-machine problem. Lots of businesses have similar issues. One approach, to find the shortest overall time, is to identify the shortest step. If it is a wash, do that load first. If it is a dry, do that load last. This way, washing and drying the loads in the right order can save half an hour.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 08/05/2025
Last year I ran a primary school maths puzzles and games club with a local teacher. Our write up covers mathematical magic, variants of Noughts and Crosses and games played on chessboards, tangrams and other geometric tile fun. Free to access on p. 25 here: www.lms.ac.uk/sites/defaul...
Children's hands playing with geometric pattern blocks, including making a rabbit and a flower. Also on the table is a soft toy unicorn head.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 02/05/2025
This is fun. (No context; both ChatGPT and Claude, even though I started a new chat, converted A5 paper to miles for the second query - both gave 0.000092 miles by 0.00013 miles).
Google query: A5 in mm
Response: A5 paper size in millimeters is 148 mm x 210 mm. This corresponds to half the size of A4 (210 mm x 297 mm). A5 is a widely used standard paper size, often used for booklets, brochures, and notebooks.Google query: A5 in miles
Response: The A5 road in Great Britain runs for approximately 243 miles (391 km). It connects London to Holyhead, a ferry port on the Irish Sea in Wales.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 29/04/2025
Most of the swag I got from #stecksconf has been requisitioned by my son, including the ‘Plasti-zine’ by @alisonatkin.bsky.social. He made a collection of creatures he says are different forms of a shape-shifting Doctor Who monster he’s made up which he’s named “chromnivore” to mean time eater.
Plasticine creatures.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 25/04/2025
Had a nice day at Warwick. My talk closed the conference and also doubled as the weekly department seminar. I discussed my history of maths/maths and society teaching from the diversity and decolonisation perspective.
Poster in Warwick Mathematics Institute for the Diversity and Decolonisation in Mathematics conference.
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 25/04/2025
Classic Nira Chamberlain.
Nira at the front of lecture theatre showing a slide with his parents’ advice “You don’t need anybody’s permission to be a great mathematician!”
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Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett.net · 23/04/2025
But sometimes it’s better at stopping itself. I kept getting things like this when I put in something too sensible.
Query: taking a train to manchester idiom meaning
AI overview: There isn't a specific idiom "taking a train to Manchester" with a hidden meaning in the way a phrase like "pulling the wool over someone's eyes" might have. The phrase is a literal description of traveling to Manchester by train.
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