A respected mathematician who, perhaps uniquely, has also starred in his own sold-out comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe made a welcome return to Queen Elizabeth’s School.
In his sixth visit to the School, Matt Parker, the Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, brought his entertainment skills to bear as he explained aspects of both applied and theoretical Mathematics to the whole of Year 10.
His lively lecture on Adventures in the Fourth Dimension covered: what a four-dimensional object looks like (from a three-dimensional perspective); how to solve a Rubik’s cube and the “surprising properties” of Mobius bands and Klein bottles.
Mr Parker, a previous London Mathematical Society Popular Lecturer, is always keen to combine his twin passions of Mathematics and stand-up comedy. He is a regular speaker for the Royal Institution and the BBC and won the People’s Choice Award in the 2009 national FameLab competition. He writes regularly for The Guardian and has performed stage shows for Johnny Ball.
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He has previously toured with shows entitled Your Days are Numbered: The Maths of Death, The Number Ninja and Full Frontal Nerdity and is currently travelling the country on his new tour Festival of the Spoken Nerd, together with scientists Helen Arney and Steve Mould.
“The boys really enjoyed the lecture as it gave them a wider understanding of how Maths can be applied as well as its purely theoretical side,” said Assistant Head of Mathematics, Wendy Fung.
Pupil Binu Perera said: “It gave me food for thought,” while Noma Kim added: “It helped me to understand four dimensions better.”