haggisthesheep here offers a pleasant report about a math-oriented event in the National Museum of Scotland recently. The theme was “A Night In Wonderland”, which is probably almost inevitable, since mathematicians really, really like that (a) people have heard of Lewis Carrol, (b) he can be fairly described as a mathematician, and (c) people aren’t scared of mathematics when it’s presented as Lewis Carroll clowning around.
I recall flipping through one of his logic books and finding a delightful demonstration of how the conclusion may be true while the arguments are not — I believe it was “if a person is late for a train, then he will be running” and “the man is running”, doesn’t prove he’s late for the train, because he might be being chased by a tiger. A good tiger chase livens up any discussion of logic.
On 18th May I was lucky enough to get involved with my first RBS Museum Lates at the National Museum of Scotland. These events happen about 3 times a year and are a chance for the (over 18) public to come back into the museum after hours and to get cosy with the exhibits with a cocktail and live band. It’s also a chance for science (and arts!) communicators like me to run an activity and get some surreptitious education into the evening.
The theme for this month’s Museum Late was “A Night in Wonderland”, so there were lots of top hats, white rabbits and red queens! (See lots of photos of the event on the Museum’s Flickr page.) Knowing that Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) was a mathematician and logician as well as nonsense-poem writer, it seemed wrong for there not to be a mathematical component to…
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