OK, don’t waste your time reading Matt Parker’s latest book, "Humble Pi," from page 1 to page 314… complete waste of friggin’ effort; reads like gibberish and a crazy travesty of publishing. Who knows what kind of psilocybin Matt was on when he wrote the dang thing….
INSTEAD… read the volume from page 314 to page 1 and you will be thoroughly entertained by the range of uniquely-strewn-together topics Matt combines in this rollicking volume peppered with his usual droll-to-wacky humor… one can easily imagine Parker at his writing tablet, smirking as he composes the many lines that will beget a chortle from unsuspecting readers (unsuspecting that there be humor in math).
The book is full of gems… math gems, humor gems, and just thought gems, scattered throughout an unpredictable mix of math nuances and perversities, which will leave you earnestly hoping that Parker has agreed to donate his fertile brain to science (preferably after he passes). In fact, I’m no longer sure who makes me laugh more, Ben Orlin, Matt Parker, Ricky Gervais, or the Evangelicals who vote for Donald Trump while labeling themselves moral or patriotic (LOL, OMG).
“Humble Pi” was already a big bestseller across the pond in Britain last year (perhaps explaining why the publisher actually sent it to America, lo-and-behold, absent-mindedly keeping the same title), so now it's time for Americans to show what they're made of, and buy it! — though admittedly, my Homeland, especially under the Trump Regime, is not characterized by a fondness for math/science matters (except, of course, as it may apply to money-laundering and tax evasion, two topics Matt can include when he does the sequel, “Humble Fourth Reich”).
Indeed I’m always amazed when I venture into a Barnes and Noble and see some mathy volume on a front table display right alongside a John Grisham work or the latest 'how-to-live-to-be-200' effort (or some such) from Dr. Oz. In any event, here at the blog, I’m speaking to a choir of math enthusiasts who will hopefully prefer this volume over the latest schlock from Dan Brown. For all remaining Americans who aren't under the spell of Q-Anon, and who prefer fun to fascism, this is a fab read.
Computers, engineering, numbers, money, statistics, randomness, time, probability, algorithms, and more…. it’s all here for your delectation… and it ain’t always pretty… but then, that's sort of Matt’s point.
^ One of these is a headshot of a true national Australian gem; the other is Matt Parker.
Who’s the hottest mathematician going these days? ...probably debatable, but if we ask instead who’s the "hottest-mathematician-AND-stand-up-comic" going these days, then it’s more likely a slam-dunk for Matt Parker, newly-out with his second fab popular math volume, “Humble Pi.” So just a post today paying tribute to the jaunty numbers bloke who spreads math far-and-wide... including biographical information taken from public sources, private spies, and NSA operatives (…or, made up out of thin air):
Though he hails from Britain now, Matt’s originally from Australia, and I have a soft spot for anyone from the land of cockatoos and Crocodile Dundee. Somehow he seems to also sneak into the U.S. on occasion (…so much for Homeland Security!).
Born in 1980, Matt is ~39 years old (coincidentally, an age I was at one time). I couldn’t find his actual birthday, but he seems very Sagittarian to me; or perhaps Capricornish, though Aries and Gemini are definitely also in the running. ;)) God forbid if I’m wrong and he’s really a friggin’ Leo!
Matt was born 60 years after Ramanujan died, and began channeling the Indian prodigy at a very young age (OK, I made that up; I honestly don’t know who he channels; it could be Henny Youngman).
As best my crack genealogical team was able to uncover (without actual DNA samples) he is no relation whatsoever to Fess Parker of Davy Crockett fame. Nor will Sarah Jessica Parker or Trey Parker claim any connection to him at all. It’s even possible he was raised by a pack of wild dingoes in the Australian outback (…though admittedly, unlikely, and I don’t wish to start rumors here... but you, dear reader, can do what you wish).
According to rough estimates, Matt stands somewhere between 4’9” and 8’7” tall, and has blue, brown, or green eyes (maybe). He's been known to appreciate an occasional beer, but ONLY on days of the week that include a vowel (perhaps the result of a strict Zoroastrian upbringing; just a guess).
In college he went from mechanical engineering to physics to mathematics, before finding his true love in whatever the heck you call what he’s doing nowadays.
Matt’s first book was a tour-de-force in book titling: “Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension: A Mathematician's Journey Through Narcissistic Numbers, Optimal Dating Algorithms, at Least Two Kinds of Infinity, and More.”
Luckily, he learned to control his incorrigible verbal impulses (or got a better editor) with his current delicious volume, “Humble Pi” (I haven’t read it yet, but some folks say it's palatable).
In fact recently, and remarkably (even allowing for massive bribes), the book hit #1 on the British nonfiction best-seller list, a fact, which, in his humility, Matt only managed to note on Twitter 1729 times (a number Ramanujan fans will appreciate).
Hopefully, we can expect many more such books from him in the future, though he’s almost out of time for a Fields Medal (...but does still have πgoogol more chances for a Nobel Peace Prize than Donald Trump).
Last year he did deservedly share the “2018 Communications Award” of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics, with Vi Hart, leading inevitably to the pressing question, if Matt & Vi ever had a child together would that offspring prove the Riemann Hypothesis? We may never know.
And so far as I could discover, Emmy Noether NEVER had a single good word to say about Matt, though other female mathematicians seem quite willing to associate with him (Katie, Jo, Holly, Hannah, etc. may need to explain themselves).
Nor do I know what Matt's Erdös Number is, but don't let him ever try to convince you that he's anywhere in this photo (ain't so; that's me on the right with my grandpa checking over some proof we found in the margin of a book... NOT):
Many mathematicians are known to indulge in puns. Unfortunately, Matt IS one of them (but I won't "pun"ish you here with any examples).
He is a bright, exuberant, engaging, creative, witty, sharp-as-a-tack, well-spoken nerd math communicator… except of course when compared to his colleague James Grime, who makes Matt seem like just another boring, humdrum, numbers dullard scrounging a living off of his far-more capable/employable physicist wife. (James, by the way, it's been rumored, goes to bed every night with a king-size clothes-hanger in his mouth.)
No chicken to controversy, Matt once famously and unsuccessfully tangled with the British government when he realized their geometric depiction of a football (on road signs) was inexplicably far off from its true appearance:
[If you spot Matt ripping down football signs anywhere on the streets of London feel free, indeed obliged, to call the nearest office of Interpol.]
Next, he may run for Prime Minister, since that would be a much easier improvement to make in Britain these days than road signage.
It's believed Matt spends most of his spare time obsessing over magic squares, listening to old Tom Lehrer records, and re-reading absurd blog posts about himself. Hi Matt!!
If you open your browser to the internet and randomly tap some buttons, you’ll likely come across Matt; I mean he’s everywhere! Has his own website here:
...but regularly appears on Numberphile (where a no-holds-barred, winner-take-all grudge match between he and Tadashi Tokieda could well be in the works):
(occasionally, the initial thought upon viewing one of his videos, like this one, is to question Matt's sanity, but, like most first impressions, that will pass... unless, of course, you're trained in psychiatry)
He’s also had several appearances on BBC’s “The Infinite Monkey Cage” with Brian Cox and Robin Ince (as well as several other science outlets):
And, with others, he sells math gear here (…or as he lamely calls it in mangled English, “maths gear” -- those Brits constantly humour me with their warped English spelling):
Matt came in second in last year’s “Big Internet Math Off" contest, meaning he can only lay claim to being 'The World’s Second Most Interesting Mathematician' (well-ahead of Gauss, Euler, and Galois, but behind Nira Chamberlain who won the event).
And he is such a master of disguise, employing so many different aliases, that many don't even realize he once acted in an American sitcom:
I hear-tell that Benedict Cumberbatch is cast to play Parker when they do the film version of Matt's life (though maybe I have it backwards and Matt intends to play Benedict when they do the big screen version of Cumberbatch's life).
I hope this brief informative profile adds to your knowledge/appreciation of this standup guy, as we look forward to many more lemmas, conjectures, theorems, and jokes from Matt in our dystopian future. To help you recognize him in that future I had my computer generate this algorithmically age-enhanced photo of him (...yeah, yeah, I know, it looks surprisingly like Keith Devlin):
I could tell you even more about Matt, much more… but if I did he’d have to kill me.
From Matt Parker another pedagogical video with a mind-blowing ending:
Eugenia Cheng here in a TED talk applying pure, abstract math to our view of society:
If you can possibly find time for it (~90 mins.), phenomenal investor Jim Simons recounts his mesmerizing life in mathematics (and this is just the first of 3 discussions at MIT with Dr. Simons; I assume the others will also be uploaded):
...Lastly, I’ll just re-mention this fun note I tweeted out a couple days back: About a year ago I discovered a retired local math professor who gives free math talks that I attend, had previously worked with Tom Lehrer — I thought that was pretty cooool! Now just this weekend I learned he also previously worked with both Grothendieck and Ted Kaczynski. Wow, THAT'S quite an array of math folks! (and sets me thinking about my own 'six degrees of separation'). ;)
"I, for one, find Gödel's incompleteness theorems rather comforting. It means that mathematicians will never be complete. There will always be something else which is undecidable with the current axioms. Should the human species survive another few million years and continue churning out mathematics at the rate we've done for the past few thousand years, we still won't have considered it all. There will always be work for all of the future mathematicians. As always, some of that work will go on to be incredibly useful for the rest of civilization, and much of it will remain the pointless but endlessly amusing plaything of academics. "There's an unexplained mystery behind all of this, which I've been delicately avoiding throughout the book. If maths is the consequence of games and puzzles, the result of pure intellectual thought, why does it end up being so practically useful? I keep promoting maths as a bit of fun, yet no one can ignore that mathematical techniques are the workhorse of modern technology. In reality, mathematics is a serious industrial endeavor. There's a tension between what I claim to be the origin of maths and where it ends up being used."
[…If you have a favorite math-related
passage that might make a nice Sunday morning reflection here let me
know (SheckyR@gmail.com). If I use one submitted by a reader, I'll cite
the contributor.]
I already wrote a blurb at MathTango about Matt Parker's fantastic book, "Things To Make and Do In the Fourth Dimension," but now that I've finished reading it, just want to add a few quick notes:
1) First, I'll reiterate it's a wonderful volume -- I enjoyed the second half (which touched on several of my favorite topics, and also told perhaps the most fun story of Tartaglia's rivalry with Fior over algebraic/cubic equations) even more than the first half. 2) Do note however, that at least parts of the volume may require slightly more math sophistication, or interest, or just persistence, than some of the other volumes I included on my Holiday gift list; i.e. while Matt's book is a fun and educational read, not every chapter is an easy read. 3) Also, one small complaint: the book lacks an index, which because of the sheer number and diversity of topics/information included, would've been helpful. 4) Finally, (and the REAL reason for this additional posting), BESURE to read the "Acknowledgements" section at the very conclusion of the book! (...a section readers often skip over). Not only is the section entertaining to read, BUT in it are buried these innocuous, cryptic lines:
"Oh yeah, and there is a competition hidden somewhere in this book. If anyone wins it, I'll think of a suitable prize. Beware of the traps."
Leave it to Matt to concoct such a ploy! And I assume by "competition," he is not referencing proving the Riemann hypothesis! ;-). (The book poses various questions and problems at points, but I'm not sure what is being referred to as "a competition" or "the traps" -- could be fun going back through the pages trying to figure out what it's all about.)
Anyway, have at it, and, with this heads-up, may one of my readers win the prize!
