Just been to a great ‘maths lesson’ by The Idler Academy’s Head of Mathematics, Alex Bellos. Much of it I’d read in his book, Alex’s Adventures in Numberland but there were enough interesting asides – and a refreshing lack of portentous ‘thinkers’ – for it to be a good evening.
One of the astonishing bits was seeing monkeys outperform adults in memory tasks. The chimps at Kyoto had to remember some numbers in order
Anyway, feeling very enthused. Will be going to more academy talks I think.