Drumming and Science

The latest Sixty Symbols video features Professor Phil Moriarty talking about his passions - physics, mathematics and drumming.

Phil discusses a great recent paper on the topic of drumming.

But perhaps even more exciting, in a second video he reveals plans for his own research project into the topic (well, with help from students).

Read more from Phil about it here.

His research depends of volunteers (maybe you?) contributing drum samples.

Also thanks to Sean Riley for being our last-minute drummer. Sean will be known to many as the man who creates nearly all the Computerphile videos.

Lastly, here is more of Phil being a wannabe rocker from a previous Numberphile video.

Team Swamphen

Hello Internet fans sporting our Reunion Swamphen T-Shirts...

The Reunion Swamphen is the podcast's official bird - not the penguin as many people think.

Pics link to original media where possible.

CLICK HERE FOR TEAM RICE RAT PICTURES

Team Rice Rat

Hello Internet fans sporting our Jamaican Rice Rat T-Shirts...

The Jamaican Rice Rat is the podcast's official rice rat.

Pics link to original media where possible.

CLICK HERE FOR TEAM SWAMPHEN PICS

The Mace

The Royal Society's Mace is a special object.

It was donated to the society by its first patron, King Charles II, in 1663. Since then the mace has been in the room for almost every important meeting and moment in the society's history.

Even today it sits on a central table at every society meeting, as you'll see in our latest Objectivity video.

It was a great honour to hold the mace myself.

It was also fun to snap some "behind the scenes pictures" during our shoot, with Keith and James.

Objectivity camera/edit man James Hennessy captures the mace.

James and Keith awaiting a chance to film the council meeting.

Love this one... Society executive director Julie Maxted comes to retrieve the mace from Keith. Meanwhile former president Joseph Banks (in portrait) looks on. The mace is in the painting too (see below).

And here is the mace through the ages (reproduced with permission of the Royal Society)...

Ada Lovelace Day

To mark Ada Lovelace Day, we made this video at the church where she is interred.

And to further mark the day, I thought I'd share just a handful of the videos I've made with some talented women in science and mathematics...

Nobel Prizes 2015

In-keeping with tradition, this year we did fast-turnaround videos on the Nobel Prizes for Physics and Chemistry.

But as a bonus, we also did the Medicine Prize this year (because it had a lot of chemistry).

We've been doing videos like this since 2008, along with other videos about Nobel Prizes.

See the chemistry playlist here.

And the physics playlist here.

Numberphile's First T-Shirt

A bit of background to Numberphile's first T-Shirt.

It features the first two "Brady Numbers" - 2308 and 4261.

I chose these numbers randomly at the request of Matt Parker. (see at 2'10" into video)

Matt wanted to demonstrate the Fibonnacci Sequence's link to the "Golden Ratio" is not unique.

Starting with ANY two numbers and applying the same process will also tend towards the ratio.

Following the video, the idea of Brady Numbers and a Brady Sequence captured the imagination of a few people.

It even made it onto the brilliant OEIS archive of sequences!

I have dug out the original brown paper from that video to make the new T-Shirt.

The numbers were scanned from Matt's original writing to make the design.

You can buy a T-Shirt at this link (for $23.08 of course). It should take you to the cheapest shipping option.

Or use this link for American fans and this link for Europe/International.