The Sofa Shop

The Sofa Shop was an Adelaide store with a jingle that was played A LOT on TV and radio when I was growing up.

Many years later, on The Unmade Podcast, light-hearted memories of the jingle became something of a running joke.

When The Sofa Shop finally closed in recent times, this was a major development on our podcast.

In the subsequent months, podcast listeners starting making their own renditions of the jingle and we featured them on the show.

We have a list of many of them here, so do have a listen.

During a trip to Adelaide earlier this year, I tracked down the jingle’s composer (Quentin Eyres) and singer (Carmine Scalsi) for a couple of interviews.

But then we went further, and got Quentin and Carmine back in the studio for this grand finale.

Is "The Lecture" Dead?

The forced closure of most university facilities has, in some minds, ignited debate about the future of “traditional lectures”.

I spoke with professors Phil Moriarty and Mike Merrifield - both from the University of Nottingham School of Physics.

They had different views:

You can also watch the full length interviews with each of them. Here’s Mike Merrifield:

And here’s the long version with Phil:

Both have also written articles in the past - you can read Mike here and Phil here.

Comet NEOWISE

Here a few photos I took of Comet NEOWISE, which recently visited our part of the neighbourhood. Also a couple of space station pictures.

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The Day I Met Ron Graham

RON GRAHAM 1935-2020

I know the exact date I met Ron Graham - it was the 16th of May, 2014.

That’s because it’s immortalised on my office wall, alongside his signature.

Since childhood I’ve known his name because of Graham’s Number.

The unimaginably large number, made famous by the Guinness Book of Records, was a staple in any book of “amazing factoids” I’d borrow from the library.

I’d use it to boggle my family and friends.

I’d say things like: “You know, if all the matter in the Universe was turned into ink, you still couldn’t write out Graham’s Number.”

Into adulthood, I’d use the same tales to amaze my friends’ children.

Saucer-eyed, they’d ask why it was called “Graham’s Number”.

“Because the man who invented it was called Graham,” I’d answer.

I knew nothing of the man himself - where or when he might have lived.

In fact even when I started the YouTube Channel Numberphile, I still knew little of Ron Graham.

But I was sure I wanted to make a video about his number.

In fact, I feel confident saying Graham’s Number played a major role in me starting the Numberphile exploration of math and numbers.

Early in the project I enlisted the fantastic Matt Parker and Tony Padilla to tell the story of Graham’s Number, and they did a great job.

Tony even calculated my new favourite factoid - holding all the digits of Graham’s Number in your brain would cause your head to collapse into a black hole.

Later in the Numberphile project, I started visiting and collaborating with MSRI - a prestigious math institute in Berkeley, California.

One day I was in the office of its director, the well-connected David Eisenbud.

I was telling him of my fascination with Graham’s Number, to which David replied Ron Graham was a good friend.

Within minutes he was on the phone to Ron Graham - and soon I was on a plane to San Diego to meet the man himself.

It was a surreal experience. I’m not easily star-struck, but this was how I felt.

I was nervous knocking on his door.

Ron Graham was not what I expected. Of course he was an older man, but his hair retained a golden blondness and he wore it longer than one might expect.

He had an almost “surfie” youthfulness befitting his home overlooking the ocean. He wore a step counter and was fitness conscious.

We spoke about mundane things - I seem to recall him discussing daily trips to Starbucks.

He also spoke with great fondness for his wife Fan - I recall how besotted he seemed.

But talk soon turned to mathematics.

(At this point out I must point out Ron Graham was a mathematical Top Gun with a long list of accomplishments, and I’m almost embarrassed by my obsession with this one number… Ron himself seemed baffled by my interest!)

Ron was famously close friends with the legendary Paul Erdős - acting as a business and life manger for the terribly disorganised Erdős.

He spoke of Erdős often throughout the day, showing me boxes of Erdős files stored in the garage.

Then it was time to film some Numberphile videos.

Of course we did Graham’s Number (a few videos).

We also did a few other bits, including one on Erdős.

Ron was a pleasure to film - I think he enjoyed it.

After that he showed me more photos, we talked about juggling, and he discussed some work his daughter was doing (of which he was clearly proud).

I thought my time was up - but then Ron asked if he could buy me a meal.

Of course!!!

We walked out the driveway where he and his wife had their cars parked - the license plates were NUMBER and THEOREM. (Fan is a mathematician too.)

Ron drove us to local sushi place and was just sat around talking math - just ME and Ron Graham.

Like most mathematicians, he quickly grabbed some napkins and scrawled on them to visualise his explanations.

I grabbed the napkins before we left - and still have them!!!!

Ron dropped me back at the hotel and said his goodbyes.

As he drove off into the sunset, with his NUMBER-plated Lexus, the hotel doorman asked me how my day was.

“See the guy driving off there, with NUMBER on his license plate,” I said.

“Yes.”

“He’s a mathematician… and he invented the BIGGEST NUMBER EVER! If the whole universe was turned into ink, you still couldn’t write it down.”

“Cool!”

UPDATE: A podcast tribute to Ron Graham

The Time Slicer

In the latest Sixty Symbols video, regular contributor Professor Mike Merrifield talks about his own area of research.

In particular he describes the concept of “timeslicing” galaxies.

Mike’s very upfront in the video, conceding most of the work here was done by his PhD student Thomas Peterken.

Since we recorded the video, Tom has actually completed his PhD and become Dr Peterken.

There’s a tradition of wearing silly hats (see below) when you completed your PhD viva.

I‘ve also since learned Sixty Symbols (and its sister channel Deep Sky Videos) played a major role in Tom’s interest in physics.

And it was a factor in Tom’s decision to study at The University of Nottingham, where we make most of the videos.

I’ll let Tom tell us more:

“I’ve always been excited about science. I don’t remember exactly when I came across Sixty Symbols, but it must have been around when I was starting my A-levels in 2010, which I guess was relatively early in the 60S project.

“I do remember loving hearing about actual researchers talking passionately about the things that genuinely interested them.  It reminded me that Physics (and science in general) can actually be really exciting, and is all around us, rather than just being a list of prescribed and fairly abstract formulae to learn for an exam.

“It was also engaging to see real scientists talking about real problems in physics that nobody knew how to solve.  Those ‘but we really don’t fully know how this works’ moments were also amazing… taking the subject out of the stuffy facts-and-exams box and highlighting how it’s a living and evolving and incomplete thing.

“Deep Sky Videos started around the time that I was applying to study physics at university which got me so excited because astronomy was my favourite part of physics.

“I don’t think it was until I went to the University of Nottingham ‘open day’ that I realised that the people in the videos would actually be the ones teaching the undergraduates. I do remember having that slight fangirl moment when I saw Meghan Gray, Mike Merrifield, Phil Moriarty, and the others in real life, and I was so happy to see that the excitement that the Profs had for their subjects when I visited matched their “on screen personas”. 

“That’s the main reason I ended up choosing Nottingham as my first choice university.

“I kept watching the videos now and then through undergrad, and I loved reading the comments about how so many people wished they had my lecturers to teach them.

“Kind of by accident I ended up doing a research project with Meghan Gray in my third year studying galaxies in clusters, having already been inspired by her to keep studying the subject.

“It was the “unknowns” part of astronomy that pushed me to do a PhD. I applied to a few places but in the end I stuck in Nottingham, at least partly because I hadn’t encountered quite the same enthusiasm for the subject and for public engagement anywhere else.

“I don’t think Mike (Merrifield) knew who I was before I asked him about the (very open-ended) project he was offering on studying galaxies with MaNGA. I had gotten interested in IFU observations because of some work I’d come across in my Master’s year looking at jellyfish galaxies, very similar to the DSV on M90.

“My PhD took a few different turns as everyone’s does. I started out looking at whether the gas inside spiral arms is different to the gas between them, and moved onto whether the stars themselves are different, before eventually working on the research which actually went into my thesis, which was looking at how we can measure the age distributions of stellar populations and what that can tell us about galaxies’ growth over time, as Mike talked about.”

Here’s Dr Peterken’s thesis.

For many years I have spoken to young people who watch our videos.

Sometimes I say (half jokingly): “I hope one day I will be making videos about YOUR research’”

Well, now it’s happening for real.

John Conway (1937-2020)

John Horton Conway - one of the great mathematical minds of his generation - died on Saturday (11 April).

Not just a shining star of mathematics, he was also one of the field’s great personalities.

I met Conway in 2014 and we filmed a collection of Numberphile videos.

I recommend the whole playlist - but perhaps this one reflecting on life and death is the most poignant.

Of course, I also asked Conway about his famous Game of Life - a topic he was tired of - but he graciously answered my questions!

The interviews were filmed in the kitchen of Conway’s Princeton apartments - it was the tidiest room in the house.

Since he died, we’ve also put together this episode of the Numberphile podcast.

It includes clips from the man himself, plus reflections from others, including his biographer Siobhan Roberts.

I read that Conway was proud to have signed the Royal Society Charter book when he became a fellow (an FRS). Here’s his page, and a close-up of his signature courtesy of the society.

Perhaps the last word - or image - should go to xkcd, who captured the moment better than any podcast or video.

GIF Source: https://xkcd.com/2293/

A Billion Views

A nerdy, numbery milestone.

Our small family of channels has passed a billion views on YouTube.

Of course, this depends on how you define the group.

For example, the billion includes Computerphile (videos produced by Sean Riley) and Hello Internet (CGP Grey and I post the podcasts on YouTube).

So like the Voyager probes which seem to “leave the solar system” on a semi-regular basis depending on how “the solar system” is defined, we may pass the billion threshold on multiple occasions!

The most watched channels to date are Numberphile and Periodic Videos.

Sixty Symbols and Deep Sky Videos and Objectivity are among other ongoing projects.

But shout-out to some of the “hibernating” channels that we still have affection for, including Bibledex and Words of the World.

And for the record, we’re obviously using the standard short scale billion (1,000,000,000), not the long-scale (1,000,000,000,000).