Peter Rowlett

@peterrowlett.net

2175 Followers 2345 Following

I teach maths and computing at a UK university and work as a maths communicator. Sheffield/Nottingham based. Editor, The Mathematical Gazette. Aperiodical blog, Mathematical Objects podcast. Part of http://finitegroup.co.uk peterrowlett.net

Table of values - ratios of triangle sides and sin, cos and tan, for angles 10, 20 up to 70. These are plotted.
Kid: School. Who needs it? A plus B equals C. Spider Noir: You don’t do math with letters, kid.
What is it about? The Gazette publishes mathematical content, including new results. However, it is not simply a minor mathematics research journal. It is not the venue for your proof of a result that has been rejected from a research journal as too obscure or uninteresting. Equally, though it is focussed on teaching, it is not an educational research journal. It is not the right place for the results of your randomised controlled trial of a new teaching innovation. Mathematical expositions and meditations on teaching should exhibit something more to make them suitable for the Gazette. I was pleased to see this issue addressed by Alan Broadbent in 1965: ‘our field is not that of mathematics alone, nor that of teaching alone; it is the combination, the teaching of mathematics’.
Directions start by getting a Bolt for 21 minutes 7.4 miles to Nottingham railway station, then getting the train towards Leicester.
Mathematics Today magazine Maths on Holiday Special Issue.
Ayliean on beach next to board that says “Aperiodic Monotile!” She’s saying “Hello, Finite Group”.
customdice entry, table 719 in the link.
Windmill covered in scaffolding.
Games and their analysis from prehistory to today, Peter Rowlett, Sheffield Hallam University. Tomb wall illustration of an Egyptian queen playing a board game.
First inside pages of the issue, showing the editorial board, information about the journal and the opening of the editorial.
Editors of The Mathematical Gazette, 1894-2025. Table A1 in the linked paper.
Mathematics of life Reaching the top While snakes and ladders is purely a game of chance, there is a way to bring strategy into it, says mathematician Peter Rowlett
Write a number in the box to make this correct. 3/5 < box over 100 < 0.7
Figure shows a gap between reported competence (those who score high or very high on the numerical competence index) and those who rated their competence 4 or 5 on a likert scale. Reported is around 60% and actual around 40% across a range of demographic groups.
Teaser 3300 Peter Rowlett A Faulty Bet
Editor's Choice On the value of context in engineering mathematics problems: students’ perspectives Patrick Johnson and others Teaching Mathematics and its Applications: An International Journal of the IMA, Volume 44, Issue 4, December 2025, Pages 311–326
Simple calculator with 0.9999998 on screen.
Unopened advent calendar at the link given. Big picture of iced Christmas biscuits with a series of numbered doors.
Article ‘How many tiles does this game have?’ by Peter Rowlett, along with cover listing, among other things, ‘Game tiles: what’s missing?’
The word dodecahedron is underlined as misspelled, the correction suggestion is rhododendron.
Question is Shade 1/5 of the shape blue. A rectangle is divided into ten equal parts by one horizontal divide and four vertical ones. Two parts are shaded: top right and bottom left.
Mathematics of life Play nicely How did cooperation emerge in a cut-throat world? There are clues in the prisoner's dilemma experiment, says Peter Rowlett It is a dog-eat-dog world. Everyone for themselves, no matter the cost. If so, how would a behaviour like cooperation ever emerge? From evolutionary biology to international diplomacy, we can model many situations using so-called game theory. These games have actions or strategies available to each participant, plus payoffs, which are positive or negative values that each player gains or loses from each outcome. Some games are "zero-sum", where one player's gain is equal to another's loss. Some aren't.
A big outer green region. Inside this effectively a line of squares: brown, blue, then one that’s vertically separated half grey, half dark green, then brown, then blue.
Two pages including an announcement about me being the next editor of The Mathematical Gazette and a call for peer reviewers.
25th September, 12-1pm BST Maths of Colour Katie Steckles & Hana Ayoob
University buildings, trees and blue sky.
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Mathematics of life A creative curve What have holey cards and a ball of string got to do with geometry? Let's make "string art" and find out, says Peter Rowlett When she was young, Mary Everest Boole found some cards with evenly spaced holes around the edges. She laced a thread from each hole to the one opposite, covering the card with lines that crossed in the middle. When she tried connecting each hole to one not exactly opposite, she was delighted to find the threads left a symmetric curve in the middle of the card. She felt this activity gave her an intuition that helped her learn formal geometry. Years later, in 1864, she was widowed with five children.Even though the academic system didn't value the contributions of women, she worked as a librarian and maths tutor in London.
A tweet about Bitcoin, to which someone has replied asking Perplexity to tag 15 prominent mathematicians, which includes me.
Find A Grave contact form. I am writing to report an incorrect photo. I contacted the account which added it over a month ago and have not had a response. There is a picture of the wrong George Green on this page: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20882/george-green The memorial page is for George Green (1793-1841) of Sneinton, Nottingham, UK, of whom no picture exists, for example his biographer D.M. Cannell says "the sad truth is, we have very little direct or first-hand information about him. We do not know what he looked like" (George Green: Miller and Mathematician 1793–1841, Nottingham: Green’s Windmill Trust, 2nd edition. 2017, p. 17). The picture is actually of George Bernard Green (1822-1863) of New York and Arkansas, and is included correctly here: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13638561/george_bernard-green I believe this is the right Green because the picture was uploaded by Jaimee Hedlund who claims to be a descendent.
Pictures of George Green of Sneinton There is no picture of George Green of Sneinton. Cannell, who spent years looking at various archives of letters and other documents, reports (Cannell 2017, 17) the sad truth is, we have very little direct or first-hand information about him. We do not know what he looked like. Figure includes a picture of Figure 1. George Barnard Green (1822-1863) of Adams County, Wisconsin.
New Scientist HOW TO THINK ABOUT 12 of the most mind-bending concepts in science Quantum superposition The anthropic principle Animal consciousness Quantum computing Geoengineering Quasiparticles Metaphysics Friendship Language Symbiosis Geometry Mindset
Finite Group Livestream: 25th June, 2-3pm BST. Games Time with James Grime.
Herringbone brick paving.
Next and previous page buttons numbered 1, -1, 1, 2, 3, ..., 272.
Bottom says 22:21. Above is a bar chart with four bars. Horizontal axis is µm and goes >10, >60, >180, >500. The heights are labelled: first bar 202 billion, second 4.2M, third not labelled, fourth 2.1K. The first bar is about three times the height of the others, which are all about the same.
Google Maps item: Green’s Windmill and Science Centre. Victorian windmill & kids’ learning zone.
Mathematics of life What a chore Should you mow the lawn first or cut the hedge? A handy piece of maths can help with organising tasks, says Peter Rowlett Scheduling household chores is hard. Say you have three loads of washing: a regular load that will take 110 minutes to wash and 120 to dry; a heavily soiled load that needs an extra 30 minutes to wash; and a sensitive one that will take 130 minutes to wash and 160 to dry. In which order do you wash them? In the branch of applied maths known as operational research, this is called a two-machine problem. Lots of businesses have similar issues. One approach, to find the shortest overall time, is to identify the shortest step. If it is a wash, do that load first. If it is a dry, do that load last. This way, washing and drying the loads in the right order can save half an hour.
Children's hands playing with geometric pattern blocks, including making a rabbit and a flower. Also on the table is a soft toy unicorn head.
Google query: A5 in mm Response: A5 paper size in millimeters is 148 mm x 210 mm. This corresponds to half the size of A4 (210 mm x 297 mm). A5 is a widely used standard paper size, often used for booklets, brochures, and notebooks.
Plasticine creatures.
Poster in Warwick Mathematics Institute for the Diversity and Decolonisation in Mathematics conference.
Nira at the front of lecture theatre showing a slide with his parents’ advice “You don’t need anybody’s permission to be a great mathematician!”
Query: taking a train to manchester idiom meaning AI overview: There isn't a specific idiom "taking a train to Manchester" with a hidden meaning in the way a phrase like "pulling the wool over someone's eyes" might have. The phrase is a literal description of traveling to Manchester by train.
Me: Make up a random phrase that could be an idiom ChatGPT: "Chasing shadows on a sunny day." It could mean putting effort into something that's already clear or certain, like wasting time on something that's already obvious or set.
Me: bibtex The History of Mathematics A Very Short Introduction ChatGPT: Here’s a BibTeX entry for The History of Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction by John Stillwell. Then it gives BibTeX details for a book dated 2002.
Trees in blossom, fountain, building.
KP original salted peanuts packet says “Do not recycle”.
10 IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT IS ONLY TOO GLAD TO GET OFF WITH THE LOSS OF HIS SHOES. Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land, with its base in the north and its apex in the south, which is called India, embraces fourteen hundred
Book spine: The Python Project by Victor Canning.
Noughts and Crosses game on advert. 5 Noughts and 4 Crosses in a check board pattern with one of the Noughts diagonals marked.
Maze
Drawing of mazes, graphs, matrices, and a computer showing numbers.
Sunlight through roof onto support bars causing geometric patterns in shadows.
Mathematics of life Three in a row Noughts and crosses, or tic-tac-toe, is a simple game - but tweak the rules and there is plenty of fun to be had, says Peter Rowlett ON THE beach, scratching marks in the sand with a stick, my 4-year-old son was already good enough to force a draw in noughts and crosses, also known as tic-tac-toe. In case there is anyone on the planet unfamiliar with this game, it is played on a 3 × 3 grid, with players taking turns to add their symbol- an X or an O- in one of the spaces. The winner is the first to place three of their symbols in a row horizontally, vertically or diagonally. We can prove that two good players will always end the game in a draw by using an algorithm called an exhaustive search that examines all possibilities to come to a conclusion. In this case, we can use it to work out all the moves
Cover of Mathematics in School volume 54 number 1
Maths as a university option for students with a range of A-level grades University mathematics varies wildly. Are there degrees suitable for students with B/C/D grades at A-level? At Sheffield Hallam University, we see grades ranging from A to D, and only around a quarter with some Further Maths. We have a strong record of students with lower grades achieving top degree outcomes and developing into excellent graduates with worthwhile careers in mathematical occupations. This workshop offers A-level teachers chance to try out first year curriculum topics, learn how students who don't get top grades get on with degree maths, and hear about careers taken up by graduates.
List of order collection numbers including 099, 001 and 000.
Mathematics of life What day is it anyway? A mathematical magic trick lets you work out the weekday of any date - with a little help from Lewis Carroll, says Peter Rowlett Time comes in cycles, and we deal with it using a cyclic number system. What time is 5 hours after 10pm? Hopefully you would say 3am, not 15pm. You know 10 + 5 isn’t 3, but you also know to reset to zero when you hit 12. In mathematical terms, this is called modular arithmetic: we divide 15 by 12 and keep the remainder. We write this as 10 + 5 = 3 modulo 12. Modular arithmetic has many applications, from cryptography to magic tricks. There is a trick you can learn where you ask someone