Recommendations of a mathematician for the summer

Alfonso J. Population Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *

Your email *

email *

Already entered in the month of July, and with hard work and uncertainties of the next academic year to resolve, we take in this section a break of summer holidays. We hope we have been able to contribute a small grain of sand to transmit the longed-for dream of the mathematicians that this discipline is far more than the routine application of algorithms or the torture of so many school-past, present, and future. These skills are so useful in other sciences and in our society in general, that it is essential to be handled minimally with them to understand the environment around us and survive in it.

scientific information -mathematics in particular-never expires (it expands, but what is said is still valid), so that the thirty-nine reviews of this course as well as the rest of those published since the beginning of the section can be retrieved and reread from the journal in the section ABCdario of Mathematics, or from the portal DivulgaMAT of the RSME on the links indicated. I would like to thank all the participants for their effort in the writing, devoting selflessly a part of their valuable and scarce time on this task, to the readers for giving us his no less precious in reading and in your case to get us politely to their opinions, and of course the staff of the journal who has helped us, advised and dedicated its know-how with all the patience and kindness of the world. Hopefully we have been to the height.

But as the summer can give you so much, I’m going to take the liberty to suggest some proposals playful but instructive for this period of rest, and hopefully enjoy them without more jolts.

Some readings I can make bearable the heat from a sun terrace, a swimming pool, the sea, the mountain, or the hall of our house. I point out to you a nearly new arrivals to the libraries.

Playing with Math, the Group Alquerque. Catalog of games (dice, dominoes, cards, pencil and paper, puzzles, among others) and various activities, presenting its historical foundations, and mathematicians, as well as clues about how to design winning strategies. Their authors have a wide experience in educational and recreational materials (founded the group in 1998) as a benchmark in this topic.

If you want to reflect a little on some aspects of our society (unfortunately, of today; we have not changed much) and of step to know about the life and work of a mathematical exceptional, Emmy Noether, in parallel with other women in math, take a look at The tree of Emmy, Eduardo Sáenz de Cabezón , with interesting contributions from a selection of threads to Twitter in charge of the three chanchitos (Enrique Borja, Clara Grima and Alberto Márquez).

Nor can we forget the cinema, you already know how I like it. Joining the trio reading + cinema + math, our partner José María Sorando delights us with a fourth volume, entitled Math Movies , in that it reminds us and illustrates about some of the films and their relationship with mathematics, encuadrándolas this time in different aspects that appear in the viewing and making of the film: the viewers, the characters, the sceneries, the images, the titles, the script and the “The End”( and that’s not to say that only try american films, of course). And to finish, a benchmark in the world of the disclosure math, with puzzles, questions and reflections -don’t miss the end, the exhibition on Education (yesterday and today)-, teacher’s Adrian Paenza in his latest book, A mathematician there, please!

But we can also, if we want to, work a little, our rusty knowledge (or maybe not so much) with some of the proposals of contests are very affordable. From the portal DivulgaMAT we propose some activities. For lovers of cinema and culture in general, the traditional the summer Contest in which solving some cuestioncillas and doing case of the runs, you need to discover the movie (or movies) hidden.

For the most mafiosi in the Challenge of the Summer you will find a proposal of origami mathematics, the sea of relaxing (or infuriating, depending on what enormous hands that one is).

In short, we cannot say that we have no reason to continue informing us and, above all, have a good time this summer, thanks to the math.

we Hope to continue counting on all of you to the back, with the better mood and a phenomenal health.

Alfonso Jesus Population Saez is a professor of the University of Valladolid and member of the Commission disclosure Royal Mathematical Society of Spain (RSME).

The ABCdario Math is a section that emerges from the collaboration with the Commission of Disclosure of the RSME.