Maths Week: Concept of Chaos

As part of the College's Maths Week celebrations we have three videos on display in the Library explaining and illustrating the Mathematical concepts of dynamical systems and chaos.

These videos are not yet released on the web but are available to SPD for Maths Week 2012 by kind permission of Etienne Ghys, Director of Research at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon.

The films each last just over 13 minutes. The titles on display in the Library are:

• Panta Rhei – Everything Flows
• The Lego Race
• Newton’s Apple

Three more of the films will be shown by the Mathematics Department on Thursday 18th October at 18:30 in D210, SPD. See full details of the Maths Week 2012 events in the College here.

Maths Week - The Art in Maths

To mark Maths Week (Oct 15-22) we are currently showing a collection of images on our information screen  relating to Dr Maurice O'Reilly's forthcoming lecture, The Art in Maths (Oct 21, Earlsfort Terrace).  

In his talk, Maurice will be exploring mathematical interpretations of various works in the Dublin Contemporary art exhibition.  Our slideshow contains a selection of the works he'll be talking about, so why not pay the Library foyer a visit to get a taster of what's in store...

Go to Harvard For Free...

We like to point our users to open access resources on the web that might be of use for your study or research. One such recommendation is Academic Earth (academicearth.org), an excellent site containing (mostly) free access to courses and lectures recorded by professors from institutions such as MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Yale and other colleges.

You can watch an individual video or, if you're feeling ambitious, a full series of lectures on a single course. Topics vary from the philosophy of death to the American novel since 1945.

In total there are over 1,500 video hosted on the site, searchable by subject, university or instructor. Why not have a look to see what they have in your area of study or work? At least it's not hard to sneak out of the lecture halfway through...

Maths Anyone Khan Do

Staff and students in our Mathematics and Education Departments may be interested in Khan Academy, a web-based collection of maths tutorials, videos and lesson plans aimed at helping learners both in the classroom and at home.

The resource was created by Sal Khan in 2008 and has since mushroomed in both size and popularity to the point where it now contains over 2,100 educational videos which have been viewed over 43 million times.

More recently the site received funding from Bill Gates and Google which has enabled the addition of some excellent interactive tools. These complement the video tutorials by gauging the level of each user and guiding them towards the next stage. They also enable the teacher to see live data on how their class members are progressing, what videos they have watched and what lessons they have completed successfully.

See the video below for an explanation of some of how the site works both for the learner and educator or go to the full website for more information.

Maths Week Exhibition

To celebrate Maths Week we are currently displaying a variety of books, articles and posters relating to symmetry and other visual aspects of Mathematics at the entrance to the main library.

The collection is entitled Symmetry and Art and contains materials by and about people such as M.C. Escher, Hans Freudenthal and Hermann Weyl.

Many of the books have been donated to the Library by members of the Mathematics Department for the duration of the exhibition so please come up and have a look at them while you have the chance.

At different times during the day we are also displaying a related slideshow of symmetry-related art on our information screen.

Our thanks to Maurice O'Reilly, Head of Mathematics for his help and donations for the exhibition.

Maths Week Exhibition

To celebrate Maths Week 2009 (Oct 10-17) we are displaying a selection of posters, articles and books at the entrance to the main Library focusing on the fascinating science of fractals and fractal images.

Come up, have a look and find out everthing you need to know about the Dragon Curve (right), the Sierpinski Sieve and the Koch snowflake!

Maurice O'Reilly, Head of Mathematics Department has lots of links on his Maths Week webpage here and has written his own article explaining the ideas behind Koch's snowflake.

Our thanks to Maurice for his help in selecting and supplying the items for the exhibition.

'Symmetry & Art' Exhibition

"[Man] has tried through the ages to comprehend and create order, beauty and perfection"

Hermann Weyl (1885-1955)

As part of the College's participation in National Maths Week (Oct 11-18) the Library is exhibiting a selection of books and images detailing the relationship between symmetry and art through the ages. Authors/artists covered include M.C. Escher (above is a detail from his work Metamorphosis III), Joseph Gallian and Hans Kuiper.

The exhibition is situated just inside the entrance to the Library. Our thanks to Sinéad Breen in the Mathematics Dept. for organising the material.

For other Maths Week events going on throughout the College click here.