Henri Cartan, one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century, died aged 104 on August 13.
The New York Times ran an obituary which is not very good; the one in the Telegraph was better.
Archive for August, 2008
Cartan obituaries
Posted in Uncategorized on August 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Doomed to failure
Posted in How to think like a mathematician, tagged George Orwell, HTTLAM on August 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I bought a collection of George Orwell’s writing, Shooting an Elephant. In the first essay, Why I Write, Orwell says,
I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some [...]
Final proofs
Posted in How to think like a mathematician on August 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have finished reading the proofs of How to Think Like a Mathematician, packaged them up and sent them on to the publisher. Hooray! Any problems were minor; the biggest problem was that some of the diagrams were incorrect. I drew sketches for my original manuscript; the plan was that a professional would use them [...]
Coming to a cinema near you…
Posted in Fun and nonsense, How to think like a mathematician, tagged Day the Earth Stood Still, Watchmen on August 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am currently taking a break from reading the proofs of How to Think Like a Mathematician. I have almost finished, which is just as well as I have to send them back this week.
Anyhow, various films are on the horizon. The worrying news is that there is a re-make of The Day the Earth [...]
Bigfoot has been found
Posted in Fun and nonsense, tagged Bigfoot on August 18, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Many have doubted the existence of Bigfoot, the giant ape-like creature that lives in the dense wooded areas of the USA. Many have asked, If this creature exists, then why have we never found any remains? But now critics have been silenced by the convincing evidence provided by two men who have found some remains in [...]
The North Will Rise Again…
Posted in Fun and nonsense, tagged North, The Fall on August 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It seems that some lager-drinking southerners from the Conservative party think that various cities in the north of England should effectively be closed and their inhabitants moved down south for a better life. Today the Guardian newspaper ran an article In praise of the north by various writers saying how great the North is. My only complaint [...]
Cover of How to Think Like a Mathematician
Posted in How to think like a mathematician, tagged HTTLAM on August 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve got the proof of the cover of How to Think Like a Mathematician. You can see it at
http://www.maths.leeds.ac.uk/~khouston/pdffiles/httlam_cover.pdf
Camera toss
Posted in curves and surfaces, tagged curves, photography on August 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A Flikr group called Camera Toss (you throw the camera in the air) has been producing some great pictures of curves. Singularity theorists will recognize cusps in some of the pictures.
View the group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/cameratoss/
One of the group administrators clickykbd has some really good examples.
How to Think Like a Mathematician
Posted in How to think like a mathematician, tagged HTTLAM on August 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One of the reasons for starting this blog is so that I can write about my book How to Think Like a Mathematician. I have been working on it for many years and it is due to be published on December 31 by Cambridge University Press. It even has an entry at Amazon but you can’t [...]
First post
Posted in Uncategorized on August 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
If I had waited, my blog would have been created on 08/08/08.
