June 2008
I recently visited the Apple computer store in Birmingham. The resulting experience and purchase is the subject of my latest article for the computer press.
Of course, not withstanding the arrival of an Apple Mac in the house, I continue to fly the flag for RISC OS and so, this month, I'm providing links to my five other articles on that subject, published (so far) this year.
The first was written to support the release of my WordChain II software:
The second is a review of a great piece of FREE software:
The third details the construction of my valentine's day heart:
The fourth article is...
And, most recently:
A further 19 of my RISC OS articles can be found HERE
May 2008
My article "Revisiting Pascal's triangle" has been published this month
in the Open University mathematics magazine, "M500".
The article, pitched an undergraduate level, discusses various ways
of thinking about the entries in Pascal's triangle.
It's eight pages long, and concludes with a proof that:
The magazine (Issue 221) is available via membership of the M500 society.
Anyone interested in mathematics can join the M500 society.
April 2008
This month, I present one of my favourite mathematical jottings,
first published in 1993 by The Mathematical Association
in their magazine "Mathematics in Schools".
It was my answer to the question, "What is geometry?".
Click on the image to read my article
March 2008
Now available: CD-ROM, readable on all computers, of my art.
A few (low resolution) samples of what is on the CD :
Click on any image for an enlargement
Cheques payable to
Martin Hansen, Shrewsbury School, Shrewsbury SY3 7BA.
You may also pay using paypal, credit or debit cards :
August 2007
I've been working with Anthony Haines on a Prime Number Generator for RISC OS. Anthony writes the ARM machine code and I check the output. I then add routines to write the results in a plain text format and wrap the project up in a user friendly WIMP front end. Our first offering, !MakePrime, is now available from this website. The software is free to download but the copyright remains with Anthony and myself.
There will be a MakePrime version II along in a few months. This is currently under test. On Iyonix, MakePrime II has managed to generate 100 million primes using an array of around 128 megabytes. This is twenty times more primes than the maximum available from the current version. It generates these in less than 6 minutes. ( Which I find impressive ! )
The current !MakePrime download is designed to run on a StrongARM RiscPC with over 32MB of RAM. It will run (twice as fast) on the A9, Iyonix and under VirtualAcorn emulation on Windows and Apple machines.
There is more information about prime numbers (from January 2007) further down this page.
The program requires a directory called "Primes" be placed next to it (as in the Zip archive) and it will place the files written, one for each million primes, into this.
June 2007
The joint winners of The Powell Mathematics Prize 2007 are:
A Angpanitcharoen
D A Kell
The five puzzles from the competition and their solutions are all now posted and available via mouse clicks on the relevant letters below.
March 2007
I'm thrilled to have been given copies of the Mathematical Gazette dating back to 1938. The first thirty years worth of my aquisition belonged to the late Hugh Launchbury, and those since 1968 to Jack Davies. Both men taught mathematics in Cheltenham.
January 2007
I find prime numbers totally mesmerising.
This year's RI Christmas lectures got me thinking about them with a passion I've not had for years. I found that I didn't have the database of primes I needed to test various ideas I last looked at years ago. So this month I've been sorting that out. You can read about this in my drobe article linked to from below.
Site built and maintained by Martin H Hansen, Shrewsbury School, Shrewsbury. SY3 7BA.
All images, text and file downloads (c) 2006 , 2007 and 2008 by The MathMagical Software Company.
