Surprise visit

Filming the latest round of Objectivity at the Royal Society, what a nice surprise to meet fan Vasilis, from Greece.  

He was holidaying in London and decided to visit the Royal Society's library after seeing it featured in our films. 

I suspect Vasilis was mainly hoping to meet the likes of Keith, our star librarian (which he did). 

But he was pleasantly surprised to be allowed to view documents and objects from the archive (as any visitor to the society can!).

Vasilis spent many hours poring over old manuscripts and I think he had a great time.  

Viewer 17-gons

Our Numberphile video about Gauss and the 17-gon was posted this week.

Here's David's Heptadecagon:

But equally exciting have been these efforts by Numberphile viewers.

Note these are compass and straight edge constructions. That's the point.

@dullahansolo

Charles Via Facebook

@ProgrammerHero

@enfo14

@JosselieNoirel calls this a heptafaildecagon

@kolekracaw used Geometer Sketch Pad

Earlier effort by @kolekracaw

@FordFiesta_

@MrCamago

There's an additional video about the math behind the construction.

Be My Valentine

I've not made a specific video for Valentine's Day this year - but here are some previous efforts.

We joke about this one being filmed on February 14 because we both had no other plans!

And because Simon Singh seemed to think this was a Valentine's video.

Chicken in Acid

The new Periodic Videos film involves dunking chicken drumsticks into various acids.

Here are some extra pictures from beforehand and during the shoot.

Neil prepares the fumehood

Ready to go

HF left the meat looking "decidedly dead"

Love this picture of the piece above HCl

Note: a sequel video is coming (most likely next week) to show what we did next.

Star Wars with Darth Vader

All regular tickets have been allocated for the Hello Internet/Star Wars event with David Prowse at Bristol Zoo.

They were gone within seconds.

After talking with the zoo, we've made a few extras available and these will be auctioned. 

Those who emailed for regular tickets will receive a notification, and we will add updates to this blog in due course.

Please note, all proceeds from the event are to raise money for Bristol Zoo's penguin conservation fund.

Our event poster was designed by Knut Johannes Håland.

Tossing Coins

Tossing a coin is 50-50, right?

Persi Diaconis is a Stanford Math Professor - and former magician.

Just one of his claims to fame is research into the randomness of coin flips.

He helped out Numberphile with this series of videos.

First, a general discussion about why a coin toss is NOT entirely 50-50.

Second, should you catch a coin or let ut fall to the ground? The answer may surprise you.

And last, here is just some extra footage which is also interesting.

And a bonus, one of the very early Numberphile videos about coin tosses at the Super Bowl!

Near Death Experience in Vietnam

My Dad was a soldier in the Vietnam War.

(Yes, Australia participated in the Vietnam War.)

Of course I have been aware of this all my life. I would not say Dad was forthcoming about his 'war stories', but was always willing to discuss them if asked.

Dad's tales always had a unique perspective because he was a 'Dog Tracker', meaning his journey through the jungle was shared with a Kelpie-Labrador cross called Caesar.

(Australia's war dogs were named in this way... Marcus, Cassius, Tiber, etc)

Peter Haran and Caesar

After a battle, it was Caesar's job to sniff, follow and then 'point' at the escaping 'enemy'.

I suppose this often put Dad at the pointy end of a second firefight.

It also means Dad had a quirky 'man and dog get into scrapes' angle to his time at war. On a few occasions Caesar saved Dad's life.

After the war Dad became a newspaper journalist, so perhaps it was inevitable that he would write a book about his Vietnam experience.

The book was called Trackers and has been quite successful.

Reading the book was an eye-opener for me, giving me a much better idea of what Dad went through.

But I always think the best way to understand a story is to go there - to stand where it happened. Take in the smells, the geography, the sounds,

So last year I travelled to Vietnam with Dad and we went to many of the places where his stories took place.

I am slowly turning them into short videos and posting them to YouTube. This was something Dad encouraged me to do - I was happy to just stand and listen to him talk.

The first video I've created is probably the most important, and is Dad's most 'famous' story. But I will let him tell it:

This extra video gives a little bit of extra information about land mines, and adds some context to the main video: