A Reaction Video Squared

Numberphile viewers may be familiar with The Parker Square - an ill-fated mathematical construction by Matt Parker.

Well, recently I recorded a follow-up video with mathematician Tony Várilly-Alvarado.

He explained that the elusive “3x3 Magic Square of Squares” may be impossible!

A crumb of comfort for Matt perhaps?

I wanted Matt’s reaction, so asked him to film a “reaction video”.

Enamoured by the farce of it all, I also asked Matt to record a reaction to his reaction.

Matt obliged, and added some great little gags (love the popcorn move!)

Your Name on the Wall

People who support our chemistry channel (Periodic Videos) via Patreon receive an unusual perk.

Their names are included on our unique Periodic Table of Patrons, which is regularly updated and shared on our website.

But the next version (*) will also be printed out and adorn the wall of Professor Martyn Poliakoff’s office.

Sir Martyn has an assortment of Periodic Tables on his office walls - and this will be a welcome addition.

So if you’d like to be part of it (and support our endeavours), go to Patreon and choose your element.

You can choose an element that’s already “supported” - or maybe be the first person to support an unloved element like Mercury, Magnesium, or even Gold!

If you already support the project, you could move to a different element for posterity on the Prof’s wall!?

(*) the first version to be printed will be the one at the end of March and start of April 2023… While the online table will be updated monthly as usual, the hard copy office-mounted version will only be updated occasionally!

PERIODIC VIDEOS PATREON

Below is the March 2023 version - the next version will be the one we put on The Prof’s wall!

Spooky Action at a Distance

Most years we try to make videos about the Nobel Prize winners in chemistry and physics.

You can see past videos on chemistry at Periodic Videos and on physics at Sixty Symbols.

But this year we had a “spooky” coincidence.

I had a video with Professor Mike Merrifield scheduled for 4 October - it was about so-called Spooky Action at a Distance and Bell’s Inequality.

Literally minutes before I was due to press publish, the Nobel Prize in Physics was announced.

It related to Bell’s Inequalities.

Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were honoured for “experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”.

We will probably still do a Sixty Symbols video on the prize in more detail soon… But here’s a fresh video about Bell’s Inequality.

As I am away in the US at the moment - this could truly be called “Spooky Action at a Distance”.

LATER ADDITION: Here is our reaction video to the prize announcement.

A Queen Playlist

The recent death of The Queen is dominating all forms of media this week - so in-keeping with the reminiscing and Queen-related articles...

Firstly, how The Royal Society deals with the death of a monarch (and its patron).

From The Diamond Jubilee 10 years ago… Etching the Queen onto a Diamond.

The Mace!

How The Queen helped me get my job at the BBC - listen from 52:50.

Another Queen-related podcast.

Do chess videos count?

And here’s me getting a medal from Prince Charles - now King Charles III.

The Messier Marathon is Complete

We’ve finally done it.

On the channel Deep Sky Videos, we have made videos for each of the famed Messier Objects.

This is a catalogue of 110 objects devised by the astronomer Charles Messier - mainly galaxies and star clusters.

YOU CAN WATCH ALL 110 VIDEOS AT THIS PLAYLIST

M1 is the Crab Nebula

We have also created some special posters and a “checklist” to mark the finale - learn more about them here. They are free to download or you can buy them.

The Deep Sky Videos project started in 2012.

It has mainly been a collaboration with the University of Nottingham, but there has been help from other people along the way.

In addition to our core list of videos on the Messier Objects, we made numerous other videos.

My personal favourites are the Telescope Tours around the world - watch them here.

M108 was the final video we published

I’m so proud of this video collection.

And I was endlessly impressed by the astronomers who always found something new and interesting to say about each and every object, even the numerous star clusters!

What next?

Well, there a few plans and you can expect our next video very soon (we’ve already filmed it!)

M110 is the dwarf elliptical galaxy near Andromeda, which itself is M31

Congratulations to Neil Barnes

I’m so pleased to be writing this post about an award for Neil Barnes.

Neil is a senior technician at the University of Nottingham’s School of Chemistry.

People like Neil are the unsung heroes of science - the men and women who keep the machines, labs and experiments running.

But Neil has another string to his bow - he has long been the heartbeat (and cult hero) of our Periodic Videos series on YouTube.

In fact Neil was the first person to appear in the first shot of the first proper episode in 2008.

Preparing to blow up a balloon of Hydrogen in episode 1

Well - today Neil was named the inaugural winner of The Royal Society’s Hauksbee Award.

This new (and long overdue) prize is awarded to outstanding support staff “behind the scenes”.

UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE AND STATEMENTS ABOUT THE AWARD

We’re all so proud that Neil is the first winner!

The prize is named in honour of Francis Hauksbee, Isaac Newton's laboratory assistant at the Royal Society.

In a lovely coincidence, both Hauksbee and Neil specialise in vacuum systems.

In fact, I’ve made an Objectivity video about one of Hauksbee’s pumps.

Neil’s citation states: “The inaugural Royal Society Hauksbee award 2022 is awarded to Mr Neil Barnes for his outstanding skills as a research technician which have supported generations of physical chemists, and his continued inspiring of future scientists by popularising chemistry online, attracting thousands of fans worldwide.”

“Thousands of fans” is probably an understatement.

I’ve spent countless days in the lab with Neil… filming as he sets up, performs, and then cleans up experiments.

Many times I’ve asked: “Can we do that just more time?”

He never says no (but sometimes goes out for a calming cigarette first).

Neil is a sucker for fire and a big explosion, but also takes pleasure from the more subtle experiments and colour changes.

Many of my best science memories are just the two of us in the lab, being flabbergasted by an unexpected reaction or result.

Our viewers have long made it clear they love Neil - but this award writes him into the honour roll of science!

No-one deserves it more.

Here’s a Neil tribute edited several years ago - but it’s still fun to watch.

And here are some more photos.

Fields Medallists for 2022

The International Mathematical Union has named the 2022 Fields Medallists.

They are Hugo Duminil-Copin, June Huh, James Maynard, and Maryna Viazovska.

I was particularly pleased to see the names of Huh and Maynard - because both have contributed to Numberphile videos.

James Maynard has contributed numerous videos - and a podcast.

MAYNARD VIDEO PLAYLIST

The IMU also gave its 2022 Chern Medal for lifetime achievement to another Numberphile contributor - Barry Mazur.

MAZUR VIDEO PLAYLIST

Of course, this is merely a nice coincidence.

But it’s also testament to the many great mathematicians I’ve been able to meet and interview because of Numberphile’s collaboration with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.

I met all these mathematicians during visits to institute in Berkeley, California (currently being renamed as the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute).

BTW, here is a playlist of videos we’ve made with Fields Medallists - there are now seven winners in total.

And hopefully more in the future?

I recommend this video in which Cédric Villani discusses the Fields Medal and how he won it.