#MuseumEd

5 months ago

A quick bit of #Maths in #Museums: The shape of castles and their keeps and towers.

tommaths.blogspot.com/2025/10/maths-in-museums...

#MathsToday #MuseumEd

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National Center for Science Education

5 months ago

A quick bit of #Maths in #Museums: The shape of castles and their keeps and towers.

tommaths.blogspot.com/2025/10/math...

#MathsToday #MuseumEd

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@ncse.bsky.social

5 months ago

Last reminder! Applications for the Sound Science Fellowship are due this Friday, September 19 at 11:49 PM ET! ncse.ngo/sound-scienc... #EducationalResearch #edusky #museumed #edresearch #scied

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Original post on mathstodon.xyz

6 months ago

On Saturday I did a thing in a museum with a bunch of maths communicators (as part of #TMiP25). I'm going to write up what we found later, properly, but I wanted to quickly record that we did it: tkbriggs.co.uk/talking-maths-in-museums...

#MathsToday #MuseumEd #maths […]

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Talking Maths-in-Museums in Public (in Coventry) 2025’s Talking Maths in Public (TMiP) conference was hosted by the University of Warwick. The pre-conference Wednesday night social (including a performance by the Pseudorandom Ensemble) and …

6 months ago

On Saturday I did a thing in a museum with a bunch of maths communicators (as part of #TMiP25). I'm going to write up what we found later, properly, but I wanted to quickly record that we did it: tkbriggs.co.uk/talking-math...

#MathsToday #MuseumEd #maths #museums #MathsInMuseums

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The Museum Lady

@themuselady.bsky.social

6 months ago

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The Museum Lady

@themuselady.bsky.social

6 months ago

Last call for submissions for this week’s serving of The Weekly Tea with The Museum Lady. Send us stories & events that fellow professionals & GLAM nerds need to know! Get your submissions in by 2 pm CDT today.

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Learning and Access Officer (school membership) - GEM Job title: Learning and Access Officer (Membership) Salary: SO2 £37,280 – £39,152 Hours: 37 Contract: Temporary until 31 March 2028 Location: Leeds Discovery Centre, with some hybrid working as necess...

6 months ago

New #job Learning and Access Officer (school membership) @leedsmuseums.bsky.social #Yorkshire

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Maths in Museums: Roaring Meg Goodrich Castle, a ten-minute drive from the Welsh border in Herefordshire, England, has to be one of my favourites[1]. It's a Norman medieval ruin that played host to an English Civil War siege by Parliamentary forces upon the Royalist forces stationed there. Despite not having its defences updated to 17th-century standards, the medieval castle stood up well to direct attacks and artillery was introduced to the conflict, with Parliamentary Army Colonel John Birch commissioning the casting of a mortar called _Roaring Meg_. --- Roaring Meg at Goodrich Castle © 2025 by Thomas K. Briggs is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Situated amongst the ruins at the modern day English Heritage site, the Civil War's only surviving mortar, Roaring Meg, is accompanied by an explanatory panel, which is shown in the photograph below. The focus of this post is not the story or the text, but the main image included in this panel. It shows a drawing of a mortar similar to Roaring Meg, with a trail of smoke arcing from the muzzle of the cannon to the landing position of a spherical projectile just in front of a castle. Around the base of the mortar are other projectiles, presumably waiting to be fired, and a caption underneath the arc of smoke reads "_A Morter Shooting upon a Castle". A_ t the mouth of the gun floats a _quadrant_ ; a sort of 90-degree protractor with a plumbline hanging down from the join that forms its right-angle, marking off an angle on the scale that curves between its two arms. --- Roaring Meg's explanatory panel, created by English Heritage, photographed by me. I was intrigued by this image, and a reverse image search suggests that it's the top half of a page from Thomas Venn's _Military & Maritine Discipline in Three Books_, specifically the third of these, _The Compleat Gunner_. I've included the full page as an image below, but it can also be explored (along with the rest of the books) at the Internet Archive. The bottom half of the page is a diagram showing another view of the mortar with the quadrant floating over its muzzle again, and a series of lines beginning at the muzzle and radiating out at different angles, labelled A-O. Each line can be followed until it curves, then continues in a straight line ending at the landing point of one of thirteen mortar projectiles which have been fired from the mortar at an angle indicated by the letters. --- Image obtained from an auction listing for the book at Bonhams. This diagram is captioned _"How you are to use the quadrant afore described for a Morter, as you may see by the falling of the Granado uppon the Letters,"_. Most of the landing points have two projectiles (_Granado_), demonstrating that there are two angles which can be used to reach each landing point: one shallow, one steep. Most, that is, apart from the furthest possible landing point, which only has one way to reach it. The diagram doesn't provide specific angles, but it does do a great job of showing that (1) changing the firing angle changes the distance that the projectile travels, (2) that the furthest possible distance is achieved by firing with the mortar set to a specific sweet-spot angle, and (3) that for all other achievable distances, there is a pair of angles, one greater than this sweet-spot angle, and one smaller than it, that will put the projectile in the same place. This one object, its story, and accompanying historical commentary and diagrams, has potential for a range of mathematical explorations with a variety of cross-curricular links, from hands-on experimentation (they sold wooden make-your-own-mortar kits in the shop) aimed at primary-age students, to opportunities for A-level students learning about mechanics to have a go at modelling scenarios algebraically, and then testing their models. As always, if you'd like more museums and galleries (including Goodrich Castle, and English Heritage in general) to bring their mathematical stories to the surface, then consider letting them know when you provide feedback after a visit: organisations in the cultural sector really care about visitor feedback, and the only reason that most of them don't do anything to help you play with maths while you're there is that they don't know you want them to. ## Did you enjoy this post? If you'd like to see more posts like this, summarising the maths I've found during a visit to a museum (or gallery, etc), then consider doing one or more of the following: * (and don't forget to let me know what I did that was worthing tipping me for) * If you'd like me to write a similar post about a specific museum or gallery then commission one. * If you work for a museum or gallery and you'd like some help telling a mathematical story, get in touch. ## Footnotes 1. I love a castle - even the ones that are just earthworks with nothing much to see - but for a relatively small site, Goodrich has it all: for a ruin it has a lot of walls and multiple levels to explore, including the (now dry) moat, a pitch-dark dungeon, and a tight spiral staircase that you can use to see breathtaking views from the top of the keep. They also had some stuff out in the courtyard to play with - _quoits_ and the like - and there's the obligatory shop and cafe. [back]

6 months ago

Another #MathsInMuseums post: this time it's just one object - Roaring Meg.

tommaths.blogspot.com/2025/08/maths-in-museums...

#MathsToday #MuseumEd #Museums #History #Maths

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Maths in Museums: Roaring Meg Maths educator with many and varied interests. Guitarist, writer, reader, human being. Interested in freelance opportunities, or just a chat.

6 months ago

Another #MathsInMuseums post: this time it's just one object - Roaring Meg.

tommaths.blogspot.com/2025/08/math...

#MathsToday #MuseumEd #Museums #History #Maths

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Alpaca 2025 – Algorithmic Patterns in the Creative Arts

6 months ago

This free festival and associated conference in Sheffield in September looks fascinating: Alpaca (Algorithmic Patterns in the Creative Arts) - https://2025.algorithmicpattern.org/

#MathsToday #MuseumEd #Maths #Art #Creative

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Alpaca 2025 – Algorithmic Patterns in the Creative Arts

6 months ago

This free festival and associated conference in Sheffield in September looks fascinating: Alpaca (Algorithmic Patterns in the Creative Arts) - 2025.algorithmicpattern.org

#MathsToday #MuseumEd #Maths #Art #Creative

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Senior Producer (0.4 FTE) - Schools and Colleges - GEM The Role The Schools and Colleges Senior Producer (0.4 FTE) is a job share role that will manage the development and oversee the delivery of the ongoing V&A schools programme, […]

6 months ago

New #job Senior Producer - Schools and Colleges at V&A #London

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Creative Producer: LEGO Programme - GEM About Us We are a world-class visitor attraction and leading science research centre. We use the Museum’s unique collections and our unrivalled expertise to tackle the biggest challenges facing the […...

6 months ago

New #job Creative Producer: LEGO Programme @nhm-london.bsky.social #London

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Public Programmes Officer - GEM Bletchley Park is a vibrant heritage attraction, open daily to visitors, revealing the secrets and telling fascinating stories of the secret British World War Two codebreaking operations. The mission ...

6 months ago

New #job Public Programmes Officer at Bletchley Park #SouthEast

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Kick the Dust Project Worker - GEM Do you have experience of working with young people to plan or deliver activities in the museums, arts or cultural sectors? Norfolk Museums Service wishes to appoint a dynamic Project […]

6 months ago

New #job Kick the Dust Project Worker at Norfolk Museums Service #EastofEngland

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Programme - Talking Maths In Public 2025

6 months ago

What's this? A new session announced for Saturday morning at @tmip.bsky.social ?

talkingmathsinpublic.uk/programme/#s...

#TMiPinMuseums #MathsToday #MuseumEd

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6 months ago

What's this? A new session announced for Saturday morning at @TMiP ?

talkingmathsinpublic.uk/programme/

#TMiPinMuseums #MathsToday #MuseumEd

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Find a Maths Jam | MathsJam

7 months ago

If you're not near MK, find your nearest #MathsJam at www.mathsjam.com/find-a-jam/

#MathsToday #MuseumEd

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Maths in Museums: Bolsover Castle For years I have been periodically prompted to think "ah yes, must go there one day" by signs for Bolsover Castle as I pass through the vicinity of Junction 29A on the M1. That day, as all things must surely do, finally came to pass on Monday 11th August, 2025[1]. --- Bolsover Castle © 2025 by Tom Briggs is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 As with all posts in the _Maths in Museums_ series, it is not for me to tell you how or when to visit, how much it costs, or even much about the history of the site (though some will surely creep in). All of that can be left to English Heritage, who are its current custodians. Our purpose here is to uncover some of the opportunities for mathematical exploration that I spotted during my visit[2]. As with most museums and galleries, there's no interpretation at the site that will help you to structure any exploration of these ideas. Bolsover Castle is the ruins of a 17th century castle built on the ruins and earthworks of a 12th century castle. My immediate mathematical thought, then, was of a simple comparison of the time between the original castle and the rebuild, and the time between the rebuild and now: telling me that something is from the 12th century or from the 17th century doesn't mean much to my brain, but comparing the length of those two periods gives me a mild case of what I'm going to call time-vertigo. --- | Scale Models of Bolsover Castle © 2025 by Tom Briggs is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 --- One of the first things I noticed as we passed through the massive South-East Gate into the Great Court was a tactile scale model of the castle and its grounds (bottom, in the collage above). I _love_ a scale model because they help me to shrink things down to a point where an overview fits into my brain. There was another - of 'The Little Castle' (top, in the collage) - elsewhere[4]. Not only are scale models generally brilliant, they're also excellent routes into some mathematical exploration: measure things on the model and work out their real-life size; measure a real-life thing (yourself, maybe) and figure out what it would look like in the model. Or, when the scale isn't given[5], measure a real-life thing _and_ its scaled counterpart and work it out from there! An image of the earliest-known architect's design for a kitchen range, destined for Bolsover castle, (including annotations with units of measurement) provides a nice alternative angle on this general theme. And another: it's difficult to tell the scale of the building in the image at the top of this post, but I commented that it felt like it was made for giants, which made me wonder how big those giants would be if their height and and the height of the entrance way were in the same proportions as my height and my front door at home. Browsing the guidebook tells me that Bolsover has been subject to at least two major sieges in its past. A good siege always reminds me of Storming the Castle, a maths+history learning activity offered 140 miles away at Norwich Castle, could easily be plundered for ideas that would work at any castle. But siege warfare in general provides a feast of mathematical themes just waiting to be explored at all educational levels, from simple resource management problem solving for primary school students, up to investigations of projectile motion for students at A-level and beyond. It's always good when there's a real person you can hang a mathematical story on, so I was absolutely stoked when I wandered into a room and came face-to-face(less) with none other than... --- Ada Lovelace Mannequin at Bolsover Castle © 2025 by Tom Briggs is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 ... only Ada blimmin' Lovelace! She's there as part of a collection of dressed mannequins that form an exhibition called _Fame, Fortune and Fashion: The Women of Bolsover_[6]. Disappointingly, the banner accompanying Countess Lovelace's mannequin doesn't explain what her connection with Bolsover is, and the best I could find was that her final resting place is a church about half an hour away by car. Nevertheless, Ada Lovelace is well known as an important figure in the history of computer science (which is often mentioned, including in her panel here) and mathematics (which is often omitted, including in her panel here)[7]. This habit of celebrating famous historical figures' achievements _except the maths_[8] means that sometimes a little bit of digging can pull out a mathematical connection where one is least expected. A couple of quickfire bits of maths at Bolsover Castle to leave you with: one panel drew attention to circular themes in the garden, explaining that the symbol represented perfect love in Renaissance philosophy, providing an opportunity to explore the not inconsiderable links between geometry and all sorts of things like religious symbolism and superstition; and the shapes formed either on purpose or by accident in architectural designs where form and function combine, such as the roof timbers shown in the image below: --- Form Meets Function in Roof Supports at Bolsover Castle © 2025 by Tom Briggs is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 As always, if you'd like more museums and galleries (including Bolsover Castle!) to bring their mathematical stories to the surface, then consider letting them know when you provide feedback after a visit: organisations in the cultural sector really care about visitor feedback, and the only reason that most of them don't do anything to help you play with maths while you're there is that they don't know you want them to. ## Did you enjoy this post? If you'd like to see more posts like this, summarising the maths I've found during a visit to a museum (or gallery, etc), then consider doing one or more of the following: * (and don't forget to let me know what I did that was worthing tipping me for) * If you'd like me to write a similar post about a specific museum or gallery then commission one. * If you work for a museum or gallery and you'd like some help telling a mathematical story, get in touch. ## Footnotes 1. I realise that this sounds a bit like I'm saying literally _all_ things come to pass on Monday 11th August 2025, which clearly isn't the case. [back] 2. I'd be very interested to hear about the maths links that _you_ spot during your own visit[3], or that you think of while you're reading this. If you're screaming in your head "_BUT WHY HAVEN'T YOU MENTIONED [mathsy thing]!_ " the answer is that it's because I haven't thought of it, so you'd be doing everyone a favour by bringing it up in the comments (or maybe even writing a guest post). [back] 3. To Bolsover, yes, but also anywhere else. [back] 4. In The Little Castle, if you're interested. [back] 5. Naughty! But sometimes useful, in this context. [back] 6. The only 'official' project page that I could find was this one which lists other women represented in the exhibition but, oddly, doesn't include Ada. [back] 7. She gets more than a mention on both counts in my book, _The Mathematicians' Library_. [back] 8. Another example, in case you're not convinced that this is a thing that happens: ask the next ten people you meet if they have any idea of who Florence Nightingale is and what she did that was so important, and tell me (a) what fraction of them know something about her and (b) what fraction of them mention anything to do with statistics. [back]

7 months ago

The other day I wondered if I'd find any #maths at Bolsover Castle. Well...

... You know I did: tommaths.blogspot.com/2025/08/maths-in-museums...

#MathsInMuseums #Maths #Museums #MathsToday #MuseumEd

@englishheritage

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Head of Learning and Participation - GEM Manchester Museum is looking for a values-driven Head of Learning and Participation This senior role calls for someone brimming with the energy, creativity, and imagination to provide leadership in th...

7 months ago

New #job Head of Learning and Participation at Manchester Museum #NorthWest

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Education Officer - GEM We are seeking to recruit an enthusiastic and organised person with a track record of development and delivery of inspiring education programmes, working with a range of subject matter, audiences […]

7 months ago

New #job Education Officer at Milton Keynes Museum #EastMidlands

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Head of Learning and Schools - GEM Summary Job title: Head of Learning and Schools Contract type: 2-years full-time contract Working hours: 35hrs per week, standard office hours are 9am – 5pm, Monday – Friday. Work outside […]

7 months ago

New #job Head of Learning and Schools at Art Explora #London

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Freelance Facilitators - GEM We are looking to expand our learning programme and work with a group of freelance facilitators who have experience of delivering History workshops in a school and/or heritage setting. We […]

7 months ago

New #job Freelance Facilitators @thelondonarchives.bsky.social

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Digital Learning Producer (Maternity Cover) - GEM The National Gallery is seeking a digital learning producer (maternity cover) to drive forward the Gallery’s digital learning offer across its onsite, online, and national programmes. The National Gal...

7 months ago

New #job Digital Learning Producer (Maternity Cover) at The National Gallery #London

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Learning Coordinator (Maternity Cover) - GEM Bletchley Park is a vibrant heritage attraction, open daily to visitors, revealing the secrets and telling fascinating stories of the secret British World War Two codebreaking operations. The mission ...

7 months ago

New #job Learning Coordinator (Maternity Cover) at Bletchley Park #SouthEast

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Freelance Educators and Facilitators - GEM The Jewish Museum London has undergone substantial positive change over the past two years, moving out of our Camden site and moving to a ‘Museum without Walls’ model. The museum […]

7 months ago

New #jobs Freelance Educators and Facilitators @jewishmuseumldn.bsky.social #London

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