We also made an environment to run through a game, with or without numbered pieces showing the order of play. Here the envionment is hexgame or hexgamelabels and moves are \hexmove{row}{column} (the player colour alternates).

The basic diagram is a hexpicture environment, then a command like \hexboard{11} will render a blank 11x11 game board.

You place pieces with \hexcounter{row}{column}{player} e.g. \hexcounter{b}{1}{A}.

Do you know the game Hex? Do you use $$\LaTeX$$? Chris Sangwin & I wrote a package for drawing Hex boards and games called hexboard. It makes lovely diagrams like this.

I see people are doing .

I teach university mathematics (modelling, combinatorics, game theory, history, programming) in the UK. I also research university-level educational practice. Recent papers including teaching programming, automated assessment & play and problem-solving: peterrowlett.net/publications

I'm one of the editors at @aperiodical.

I'm a Vice President of ima.org.uk/

I co-host a podcast Mathematical Objects with @stecks aperiodical.com/podcasts/mathe

Out of spa—

Because a lot of people are talking about Mathstodon on Twitter, I remembered it exists and logged back in (with a little help from @christianp). I continue to like Mathstodon and am happy to be here but generally forgot it exists. Is there a good Mastodon app anyone can recommend? That might make it easier to remember to come here.

@evelynjlamb welcome! I like the idea of here but regularly forget to check it. Your blog post reminded me I'm on here.

@peterrowlett "Quantities" is far too narrow. "Logical structures" maybe.

Currently a lot of my time is preparing for and running vivas for final year undergrad projects. Last week some game theory (Nim), yesterday's was about GCSE maths curriculum content, today it's fractals on the complex plane.

‪Quote is from the latest BBC More or Less episode on Radio 4 (though a similar claim was made on the World Service edition of the programme). But isn't self-similarity about similarity at different scales, i.e. parts resembling the whole? Am I wrong?‬

mathstodon.xyz/media/nZuvH5XSx

Lessons from my writing:

1. The mastodon interface has no markdown preview; can admins add one? For example, here's one: kerzol.github.io/markdown-math

2. Greek letters are *expensive*; latex $$\alpha$$ is 6 characters, plus 4 for math mode. Unicode α is only 1.

3. All those extra spaces in my easy-to-read latex source add up!

Okay, that wasn't pretty, but I felt was being quite number theory-y ;)

$$(u(x)v(x))'=\lim_{\delta x\to 0}\frac{u(x+\delta x)v(x+\delta x)-u(x)v(x)}{\delta x}.$$
Add and subtract $$u(x+\delta x)v(x)$$ in the numerator. Then
$$(u(x)v(x))'=\lim_{\delta x\to 0}\frac{u(x+\delta x)v(x+\delta x)-u(x+\delta x)v(x)+u(x+\delta x)v(x)-u(x)v(x)}{\delta x}$$
$$=\lim_{\delta x\to 0}u(x+\delta x)\lim_{\delta x\to 0}\frac{v(x+\delta x)-v(x)}{\delta x}+\lim_{\delta x\to 0}\frac{u(x+\delta x)-u(x)}{\delta x}\lim_{\delta x\to 0}v(x)$$
$$=u(x)v'(x)+u'(x)v(x).$$

So, in amongst updating Mastodon, I've made the site a little bit more mathsy: the logo now has a matrix $\begin{pmatrix}x&&\\&y&\\&&z\end{pmatrix}$ in it, and the site uses the Computer Modern fonts for that extra-mathematical look

Oh crumbs, first day back in the office yesterday and I forgot Mastodon existed. Mostly did email, student queries and marking; you didn't miss much.

I enjoyed "I learned some math on the streets" mathstodon.xyz/@bremner/289

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