Congratulations to Neil Barnes

I’m so pleased to be writing this post about an award for Neil Barnes.

Neil is a senior technician at the University of Nottingham’s School of Chemistry.

People like Neil are the unsung heroes of science - the men and women who keep the machines, labs and experiments running.

But Neil has another string to his bow - he has long been the heartbeat (and cult hero) of our Periodic Videos series on YouTube.

In fact Neil was the first person to appear in the first shot of the first proper episode in 2008.

Preparing to blow up a balloon of Hydrogen in episode 1

Well - today Neil was named the inaugural winner of The Royal Society’s Hauksbee Award.

This new (and long overdue) prize is awarded to outstanding support staff “behind the scenes”.

UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE AND STATEMENTS ABOUT THE AWARD

We’re all so proud that Neil is the first winner!

The prize is named in honour of Francis Hauksbee, Isaac Newton's laboratory assistant at the Royal Society.

In a lovely coincidence, both Hauksbee and Neil specialise in vacuum systems.

In fact, I’ve made an Objectivity video about one of Hauksbee’s pumps.

Neil’s citation states: “The inaugural Royal Society Hauksbee award 2022 is awarded to Mr Neil Barnes for his outstanding skills as a research technician which have supported generations of physical chemists, and his continued inspiring of future scientists by popularising chemistry online, attracting thousands of fans worldwide.”

“Thousands of fans” is probably an understatement.

I’ve spent countless days in the lab with Neil… filming as he sets up, performs, and then cleans up experiments.

Many times I’ve asked: “Can we do that just more time?”

He never says no (but sometimes goes out for a calming cigarette first).

Neil is a sucker for fire and a big explosion, but also takes pleasure from the more subtle experiments and colour changes.

Many of my best science memories are just the two of us in the lab, being flabbergasted by an unexpected reaction or result.

Our viewers have long made it clear they love Neil - but this award writes him into the honour roll of science!

No-one deserves it more.

Here’s a Neil tribute edited several years ago - but it’s still fun to watch.

And here are some more photos.

Fields Medallists for 2022

The International Mathematical Union has named the 2022 Fields Medallists.

They are Hugo Duminil-Copin, June Huh, James Maynard, and Maryna Viazovska.

I was particularly pleased to see the names of Huh and Maynard - because both have contributed to Numberphile videos.

James Maynard has contributed numerous videos - and a podcast.

MAYNARD VIDEO PLAYLIST

The IMU also gave its 2022 Chern Medal for lifetime achievement to another Numberphile contributor - Barry Mazur.

MAZUR VIDEO PLAYLIST

Of course, this is merely a nice coincidence.

But it’s also testament to the many great mathematicians I’ve been able to meet and interview because of Numberphile’s collaboration with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.

I met all these mathematicians during visits to institute in Berkeley, California (currently being renamed as the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute).

BTW, here is a playlist of videos we’ve made with Fields Medallists - there are now seven winners in total.

And hopefully more in the future?

I recommend this video in which Cédric Villani discusses the Fields Medal and how he won it.

n+7 writing

In the latest Numberphile video, Marcus du Sautoy introduced me to the notion of n+7 writing/poetry.

Take an existing text, and replace the nouns with words seven places advanced in the dictionary.

I decided to apply this treatment to the most famous Star Wars crawl, from episode IV.

I used a 1999 Oxford English dictionary, and occasionally had to take a few licences. I used a list of women’s names to give Princess Leia the +7 treatment.


THE ORIGINAL:

Episode IV

A NEW HOPE

It is a period of civil war.

Rebel spaceships, striking

from a hidden base, have won

their first victory against

the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel

spies managed to steal secret

plans to the Empire's

ultimate weapon, the DEATH

STAR, an armored space

station with enough power to

destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's

sinister agents, Princess

Leia races home aboard her

starship, custodian of the

stolen plans that can save

her people and restore

freedom to the galaxy....

And here it is n+7:

Epistolary IV

A NEW HOPLITE

It is a periodontitis of clabber.

Rebel spackles, striking

from a hidden basement, have won

their first video against

the evil Galactic Employee.

During the battue, Rebel

squabbles managed to steal secret

planes to the Employee’s

ultimate weather, the DEBACLE

STARE, an armored spade

stationery with enough poxvirus to

destroy an entire planigale.

Pursued by the Employee’s

sinister agile gibbons, Princess

Lela races home aboard her

starting pistol, customs union of the

stolen planes that can save

her pepper and restore

freehold to the galia melon….

Something Egg-stra

Two videos posted for Easter this year.

First, the legendary Johnny Ball showing how to draw an egg shape by using the geometry of a pentagon.

But we also wanted to share some recent breakthrough research about the shape of eggs.

I contacted the authors and managed to arrange a Zoom call with Val Narushin in Ukraine.

Despite being based near the war frontline, Val was able to do the interview (as long as we finished before the nightly 8pm blackout).

Of course, these were not the first videos I’ve made about eggs… See below:

It's Pi Day... again

I didn’t intend to make anything for Pi Day 2022 - feels like I’ve already done my bit for the Pi cause.

However a few serendipitous opportunities arose.

First, Matt Parker was working on his own epic Pi video - and we helped him film some things at the Royal Society.

With Matt there, it seemed like an opportunity to make some extra videos for Objectivity and Numberphile… so we did.

The above videos obviously tie-in nicely with Matt’s own video on Stand Up Maths.

I’ve also made a “last-minute” podcast for Numberphile about some music released by Pi enthusiast Martin Krzywinski. (You’ll find the Numberphile Podcast on most players and apps)

For more Pi videos from over the years, here’s the Numberphile Pi Playlist: http://bit.ly/PiPlaylist

It includes our classic Mile of Pi and Pi with Pies. Which also feature Matt, funnily enough.

Twos-Day

Well it is 22-2-22 - depending on your favoured dating system.

It also happens to fall on a Tuesday.

Matt Parker from Stand-up Maths devised an epic collaboration between various educational YouTubers - 22 of them, in fact.

The journey starts with a video on Matt’s own channel.

While continuing on his own channel, the saga then forks out to a video on Steve Mould’s Shorts channel and my own Numberphile2 channel.

It’s deliciously convoluted but great fun - the material on Numberphile2 is totally different to what is happening on Stand-Up Maths.

Various people share a story or factoid relating to the number two.

Well done to Matt and his team, including editor Alex Genn-Bash.

And if you enjoyed it, perhaps make a donation to WaterAid!?

Investiture at Windsor Castle

In January I wrote about the Medal of the Order of Australia - you can read about it here.

The citation says it is “for services to broadcast and online media”.

Because I live in the UK, it was not possible to receive the medal in my homeland.

Instead - about nine months later - I received it from Prince Charles at Windsor Castle.

Below is a video about the medal on the Objectivity channel - it includes footage from the investiture.

You can also hear more detail during this episode of the Unmade Podcast.

97: The Investiture of Dr Brady Haran OAM by HRH The Prince of Wales
The Unmade Podcast
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Brady Haran and OAM Medal