Big MathsJam<p>Kicking us off on our first session of the morning was Matt Parker <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/@standupmaths" class="u-url mention">@<span>standupmaths</span></a></span> who shared how he&#39;s planning to break the world record for the most digits of π calculated by hand, for next π day (see his other attempts here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhtC92GarkjyYbxI3-4qzIWIRbZaw4wuP" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">youtube.com/playlist?list=PLht</span><span class="invisible">C92GarkjyYbxI3-4qzIWIRbZaw4wuP</span></a>). We also heard from Bob Huxley, who has also been thinking about π day, but this time on Mars where it turns out it&#39;s actually tomorrow! Annette Margolis then talked about her class&#39; favourite (and least favourite) way to solve quadratic equations. John Hoskinson discussed Diffy Squares (<a href="https://mathforlove.com/2020/03/diffy-squares/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">mathforlove.com/2020/03/diffy-</span><span class="invisible">squares/</span></a>) and adapted them to generalised diffy N-gons - for odd N, you get repeating cycles! Nobody has ever said the word &#39;diffy&#39; more times in the space of 5 minutes. Alistair Bird <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/@outofthenorm" class="u-url mention">@<span>outofthenorm</span></a></span> shared about a mathematician who got inspired in the bath (but not that one), and what his discovery meant (turns out, not much, but it did inspire some nice results around Fermat&#39;s Last Theorem). Read more here: <a href="https://outofthenormmaths.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/blitz-krieger/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">outofthenormmaths.wordpress.co</span><span class="invisible">m/2011/11/09/blitz-krieger/</span></a> Adam Atkinson talked about Misère Games, leading to his discovery of just how many semigroups of order 8 there are, inducting us all into membership of DOCTIAL (the Department of &#39;Crikey! That Is A Lot!&#39;); and finally Harlan Connor got LOUD about signal processing - it&#39;s possible to have peaks in audio volume that are higher than the maximum value the system can store! <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/mathsjam" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>mathsjam</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/maths" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>maths</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/pi" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>pi</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/worldrecords" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>worldrecords</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>mars</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/piday" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>piday</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/quadraticequations" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>quadraticequations</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/classwork" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>classwork</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/teaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>teaching</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/diffysquares" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>diffysquares</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/baths" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>baths</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/inspiration" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>inspiration</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/mis%C3%A8regames" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>misèregames</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/doctial" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>doctial</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/loud" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>loud</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/signalprocessing" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>signalprocessing</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/groups" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>groups</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/monoids" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>monoids</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/semigroups" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>semigroups</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/combinatorialgametheory" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>combinatorialgametheory</span></a></p>