hēg denu
The old english words from which my name is derived, hēg 'hay' + denu 'valley'.-
Recent Posts
Category Archives: Mathematics
The free education revolution
A couple of days ago the free Cryptography course (run by a Standford professor) over at Coursea went live. When I first heard about this course I signed up straight away. There are a lot of universities (specifically in the … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Mathematics
Tagged Blog a day in March, Coursea, Education, Open Courseware, Open Learning Initiative, Universities
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Évariste Galois
The science library at uni has a display out the front where they put topical exhibitions up which change from time to time. This week they put one up celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Évariste Galois (b. 25 Oct, … Continue reading
Simulated knitting
David Chudzicki has created a python package (Knit3d on github) which simulates in 3D the shape that will be produced by a knitted pattern. I haven’t really looked at it yet, but it looks very interesting. Check out his blog … Continue reading
Beginning Magma
My PhD research will make use of a software package called Magma, used for computation in number theory, algebra, algebraic geometry, and algebraic combinatorics. Although I had briefly looked into Magma earlier in the year, I gave it more of a … Continue reading
Maths just like I always imagined
Last Friday I finally got my own space in the Mathematics department at uni. Now rather than being in a shared (as in shared machines) lab I’m in a lab with six other guys who are doing their doctorates or … Continue reading
Facts
Mathematics is one of those areas where words are very important. Specific words have specific meanings, and the usual overlap in meanings doesn’t exist. Sometimes, words have means that you wouldn’t expect in english. A theorem, for instance, is an … Continue reading
The Original Take-away
Presenting: Mathematics – The Original Take-away Ever since buying a badge with this slogan on it at the Maths Talent Quest nearly 20 years ago, I’ve thought this was a clever joke. Now I have a web-site.
Prove it
In the world of mathematics, proofs are everything. Unfortunately as a 21st century computer scientist my background in proofs is somewhere between zero and nothing (to be fair we were taught proofs in cse1303 – but it went way over … Continue reading
The curse of pure mathematics
When I explained my recent attempt to explain what I’m studying to my parents, my thesis director replied (I’m translating a paraphrasing here): That’s the curse of what we do, you’ll never be able to explain it to your friends. … Continue reading
What I do now (1)
I remember a maths class I had in first year uni, one of our lecturers was a guy from the maths department named Stu, or something like that. He is (or at least was in those days) an applied mathematician, … Continue reading