Category Archives: books

posts referring to books

Simon Norton

Posted on 19/02/2019 by

Simon Norton died last week. I got the news yesterday. I have written about Simon here before, after reading Alexander Masters’ biography. I have no intention of rehearsing Simon’s eccentricities. But he had an extraordinary talent and insight into mathematics, … Continue reading →

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Books

Posted on 02/02/2019 by

I realised yesterday that, although I had moved the web pages of books I had written to my St Andrews website when I came here, I had neither updated them nor put links to them. I have done the easier … Continue reading →

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A mathematical promenade

Posted on 20/10/2018 by

I haven’t posted for a while; I have been in China where the firewall allows me to read WordPress but not to post. Normal service now resumed (hopefully). Given four real polynomials, all of which vanish at the origin, suppose … Continue reading →

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Notes on Counting

Posted on 15/05/2017 by

My book Notes on Counting: An Introduction to Enumerative Combinatorics should be published by Cambridge University Press in June this year, as part of the Australian Mathematical Society Lecture Series. If you have read some of my lecture notes on … Continue reading →

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Oligomorphic Permutation Groups

Posted on 17/04/2017 by

In 1988, there was an LMS Durham symposium on model theory and groups. I had been developing the theory of oligomorphic permutation groups for some time: these are the permutation groups G on Ω with the property that the number … Continue reading →

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Not what it seems

Posted on 27/02/2017 by

There are many outstanding books explaining the latest developments at the frontiers of theoretical physics to general audiences. This is not an easy thing to do, but the physicists who have stepped up tend to be very good writers and … Continue reading →

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Huygens and Barrow, Newton and Hooke

Posted on 07/07/2016 by

Every now and again I take a random book down from my bookshelf and read it. Sometimes there is stuff worth talking about. This time it is V. Arnol’d’s book Huygens and Barrow, Newton and Hooke. This was written for … Continue reading →

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An LTCC book

Posted on 29/06/2016 by

The Taught Course Centres for PhD students in the Mathematical Sciences were set up as the result of a recommendation of the last-but-one International Review of Mathematics. The review panel said that the highly specialised nature of British PhDs meant … Continue reading →

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Alex through the looking glass

Posted on 12/08/2015 by

A few years ago now, I wrote about the launch of Alex’s Adventures in Numberland, a maths book for the general public by Alex Bellos. This year, I have read the follow-up, Alex through the Looking Glass, which I got … Continue reading →

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Farewell Terry Pratchett

Posted on 14/03/2015 by

There is no point in trying to add to what others have said so well. Go look at XKCD, http://xkcd.com/1498/ or London Reconnections, http://www.londonreconnections.com/2015/ankh-morpock-transport-committee-march-2015/

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