Something very different for SciBar this month. Rather than a "straight" science talk to a pub audience, "stand-up mathematician" and one third of the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, Matt Parker was the speaker. Such was his popularity that the talk had to be re-located to the Ocean State Tavern under Annie's Burger Shack from the Vat and Fiddle and even then it was so full that some people had to be turned away on the door.
After much pestering, Matt had given "Stand Up Maths" as the title of the talk to the organisers. He explained that this covered the two things that he could promise for the evening - 1) He would be standing up and 2) there would be maths. He offered no guarantee of entertainment.
Matt starts by explaining that he used to be a school teacher before getting into stand-up mathematics and maths communication and outreach. He claims that he has encouraged enough people to take up maths teaching that he's responsible for a net gain to the profession since he left. Then he notices that someone has a Rubik's Cube (just in case readers were wondering as to what kind of people go to see a stand-up mathematician)
The Cube is passed towards the stage and someone in the crowd jumbles it up. Apparently this isn't just your standard Rubik's Cube but it's a "Speed Cube", the sort used by real Rubik's enthusiasts. Matt explains that when people are trying to set world records for solving the Cube in the quickest time they use cube lubricant (which should be call "cubericant" but isn't) Of course Matt solves the Cube while telling us some facts about it - the world record for solving it blindfolded is 21.2 seconds. In front of the SciBar audience it takes 2 minutes and 20 seconds but Matt puts this down to an inefficient technique that enables him to keep talking while he solves it.
Recently, he's been turning his mathematical eye to the world of biology. Specifically, ranking the deadliest animals on the planet. Discounting those animals that kill accidentally, such as mosquitos, we're left with those that are the most poisonous and those that are the most venomous. However, straight up toxicity isn't enough and so we need another variable - "level of honesty". This came about because while the stone fish has "a certain level of fuck off" about it, the puffer fish definitely doesn't.
There then follows a brief digression about the general lack of two-way plots in the world. For example, would the premier league table in football be more interesting if rather than just points won, it was plotted as net wins (number of wins - number of losses) against net goals (number of goals scored - number of goals conceded) Yes, this was more sport than we were expecting of the evening.
Back on the animals, there is a snake, the inland taipan, that contains enough venom to kill 250,000 mice. Meanwhile the king cobra can kill a full size Indian elephant. At this point Matt realises that his plot needs a third axis - Success (ie how many people does the animal kill every year) On this new axis, there is a clear winner - on average, the box jellyfish has killed over 50 a year since 1954.
Who amongst us hasn't wished that we could shave literally seconds off that onerous task of shoelace tying? (not my dad obviously, as he always wears slip on shoes) Fortunately, Matt Parker is at hand (and some people say that maths has no practical purpose) After showing us the new technique and assuring us that the knots that it creates are mathematically identical to a regular knot, Matt informs us that humans, as a species are rubbish at knots. We have no standard way of untying a knot. Bacteria on the other hand are far better than us at untying knots. More biologists should be knot theorists (rather than not knot theorists which they are now)
Finally, it's onto pi. Yes, it's the ratio between a circle's radius and its circumference but it's also so much more. Matt demonstrates that it's possible to calculate pi by tying a mass to a string and creating a pendulum. If the string length is about a quarter of the local gravity (ie if it's about 2.5m) then it can give a pretty good approximation for pi. In the Ocean State Tavern, we calculated it to be 3.09 which is pretty close to the actual value of just over 3.14 (the discrepancy is due to the fact that the string had to be slightly shorter than it should have been because of the height of the ceiling).
Following a break for drinks, during which Matt spent most of his time signing people's calculators, the Q and A session started. It covered a number of topics including Graham's number (the largest number that has a use but all we definitely know about it is that it's larger than 6) and the fact that there are an infinite number of triangles but only one circle (and different levels of zoom) We talked about the fact that 153 = 13 + 53 + 33 (each digit raised to the power of the number of digits) but that this only works in base 10. Finally we talked about the fact that fractals can be used to tell whether or not chickens are happy.
Matt Parker is an excellent speaker, perfectly judging that line between entertainment and education. While I'd recommend having an interest in mathematics if you ever get the chance to see him, you don't need to remember everything you learnt at school to enjoy the show.
Nottingham SciBar website
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