Skip to main content

Nerd vision

Last night saw me at Swindon's Art Centre for a performance by Festival of the Spoken Nerd in their Full Frontal Nerdity tour. I mean, I was told there would be entertaining spreadsheets: how could I resist?

It was great to see an audience of 150 or so really getting into maths and science with an edge - and no doubt the nerds could tell you the edge's exact angle. The trio of Matt Parker, Helen Arney and Steve Mould work well together in a combination of science demos, wryly humorous scientific songs, banter and what was alleged to be maths, although it turned out to be primarily technology, fluid dynamics (physics) and computer science. But there were truly amazing spreadsheets!

Probably most impressive was the physics demos (I would say that) from the amazing electrified pickle to the revelation of the non-existent colour, but the whole was supported by well-scripted chat from all three. Even old chestnuts like breaking a glass with an amplified voice (achieved despite the technology coming over all prima donna) and Conway's Game of Life came alive with the FOTSN touch.

All three proved entertaining performers with a great balance of laughs (often reliant on a little geeky knowledge) and genuine enthusiasm for science. They kept the audience with them all the way and spread the word for nerddom.

I was surprised by the range of the audience - I expected mostly twenty-somethings, and they were certainly well represented and the noisiest, but there were plenty of oldies there too. No children, which is worth emphasising as a recommendation, both because there's what you might primly call 'inappropriate language' and because health and safety is gloriously and explicitly abandoned at the beginning of the gig - and there are couple of things here you definitely don't want kids trying at home.

For the rest of us, though, a great night - and there are plenty of opportunities to see them around the UK through to April. Take a look at the website for venues and bookings, but hurry, as some have sold out already.

[Added later]

If you are curious about the nature of nerds in action, see the video below (not the same show).


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's recent gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some ex

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Which idiot came up with percentage-based gradient signs

Rant warning: the contents of this post could sound like something produced by UKIP. I wish to make it clear that I do not in any way support or endorse that political party. In fact it gives me the creeps. Once upon a time, the signs for a steep hill on British roads displayed the gradient in a simple, easy-to-understand form. If the hill went up, say, one yard for every three yards forward it said '1 in 3'. Then some bureaucrat came along and decided that it would be a good idea to state the slope as a percentage. So now the sign for (say) a 1 in 10 slope says 10% (I think). That 'I think' is because the percentage-based slope is so unnatural. There are two ways we conventionally measure slopes. Either on X/Y coordiates (as in 1 in 4) or using degrees - say at a 15° angle. We don't measure them in percentages. It's easy to visualize a 1 in 3 slope, or a 30 degree angle. Much less obvious what a 33.333 recurring percent slope is. And what's a 100% slope