In this newsletter:

- Latest news
- Browse with Plus
- Mathematical moments
- Live maths

**********

Latest news from Plus

The artist's fractal fingerprints - Fractal geometry can identify Jackson 
Pollock's paintings 
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/may-aug05/fingerprint/index.html


Elusive twins -  A major advance towards the twin prime conjecture
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/may-aug05/twinprimes/index.html


United Kingdom ... twelve points - The maths of the Eurovision song contest
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/eurovision/index.html




Plus... more news from the world of maths

Animal perfection
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr05/plusmore35/index.html#animals

Small Earth-like planet found 
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr05/plusmore35/index.html#animals

**********


Browse with Plus

Coldplay mystery

You may have heard about Coldplay's latest album cover containing a secret 
message. The mystery is solved in this Guardian article...although real 
maths and music nerds might want to keep puzzling for themselves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,,1496680,00.html


Renormalisation of curlicues

This is something for the slightly more advanced mathematicians out there: 
the astronomer Prasenjit Saha has made an applet which displays the 
"renormalisation of curlicues". Curclicues are geometrical, fractal-like 
shapes which can be taken to represent a number. Renormalising a curlicue 
corresponds to moving along its continued fraction expansion - you can do 
it on-screen and see how the arithmetical properties of the number evolves. 
It's like turning the number inside out.

http://ankh-morpork.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~saha/misc/curlicues/


**********


Mathematical moments

John Forbes Nash - Born 1928, Bluefield, West Virginia, USA 

This is probably the only mathematician whose life has been turned into a 
succesful book and film - and he is still alive! Nash makes such an 
interesting subject because of his genius and mental illness, which are 
linked and complement each other in some mysterious way. Nash received a 
Nobel prize in 1994 for work he did 45 years earlier while writing his PhD 
thesis. The work established the mathematical principles underlying game 
theory. Nash went on to produce many excellent mathematical results, for 
example in algebraic geometry. His illness and genius were illustrated in 
the book "A beautiful mind", which was turned into a movie of the same 
name.

Read more about John Nash...

on the Mactutor History of Mathematics site:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Nash.html

on the Nobel Prize website:
http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1994/nash-autobio.html

on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash



**********

Live maths

The London Mathematical Society 2005 Popular Lectures

The LMS popular lectures this year are all about what computers can and 
can't do: Joan Lasenby talks about the maths behind the computer programmes 
that produce the amazing visual effects in movies like Shrek and Toy Story, 
and Alan Slomson explains how maths proves that computers can't do 
everything. Put your laptop on a leash and come along! Note that the 
lectures are held on two dates, one in London and one in Manchester.

When: Friday 15th July, 7 pm
Where: Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albermarle Street,
London W1S 4BS

Admission is free
For tickets and further information visit the LMS website at
http://www.lms.ac.uk/

When: Wednesday 28th September - 6.30 pm
Where: Ruthersford Theatre, Schuster Building, Brunswick Street, Manchester
Admission is free
For tickets and further information visit the LMS website at
http://www.lms.ac.uk/



The Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition is on from the 4th to the 7th 
of July. It has scores of exhibits representing the latest advances in 
science and technology. Best of all, you can talk to the researchers who 
made it all happen. This exhibition is free and needs no pre-booking.

When: 4th - 7th July
Where:  Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG

For opening hours and further information visit the RS website at
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/event.asp?month=7&id=2914

Happy reading from the Plus team!

**********

If you received this message you have subscribed yourself to the
PLUS-ANNOUNCE mailing list via our website. If you do not wish to
remain on the list please visit

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=plus-announce&A=1


and follow the instructions to leave the list.

If you have any comments on this newsletter, or Plus Magazine, please
contact us at [log in to unmask] - we are always happy to hear from
our readers!

Feel free to forward this email to anyone you think might be
interested.