2B or not 2B? Evidence that Shakespeare may have used a pencil, made from Lake District graphite. Read more in Stationery News (where else?). #PencilDay www.stationerynews.net/2b-or-not-2b...

"There were 500,000 protestors in London" said the organisers. "50,000" said the police. Estimating crowd size is notoriously difficult, but a factor of ten difference is just ridiculous. (And I'm not taking sides here.) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

On 28th/29th March as part of national Shakespeare Week I'll be doing four public talks on 'The Maths of Shakespeare's London' at MathsWorld (near Tate Modern). Details here: mathsworld.com/events/Shake...

Sunday cricket just three or four weeks away now (anyone starting earlier than Easter/April??) Have a look at our website and get in touch if we can help you with a small grant towards getting any friendly games on googlyfund.co.uk Please share in your🏏 networks

Manchester doing a great impersonation of Manchester this evening.

I'm on my way to a school in Stretford in Manchester, roughly in between the two Old Trafford grounds, but I won't be talking football or cricket. Instead I'll be doing my 50 minute interactive talk about Shakespeare and Elizabethan mathematics, for the entire Year 9 cohort (200 of them). Love it!

What if some maths was formally part of the History curriculum? History gives maths more context and its stories can captivate students. @teakayb.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy and I are at the @histassoc.bsky.social conference in May, aiming to talk to hundreds of history teachers. www.haconference.com

With a month to go until Easter, get your bids in to the Googly Fund for small grants for friendly cricket. Could be for help with your: -Ground🚜 -Kit🏏 -Teas🫖 -Advertising🤳 We’ll fund anything that helps get more people playing friendly forms of the game in the UK & Ireland

Here's part of an A level formula sheet. It tells you how to solve a quadratic. Students have this with them in their exam, so they don't have to memorise it. Whatever next?! Er...actually this is from the SMP Advanced tables book, 1975 (first edition 1966). Plus ca change.

It was really good to be the guest on the 'Your Brain On Climate' podcast with @powellds.bsky.social, a chance to talk in depth about the importance of numeracy when dealing with emotionally charged topics like climate change www.yourbrainonclimate.com/1817605/epis...

SHAKESPEARE BY NUMBERS - A free public talk On 10th March at 5pm, @freeburian.bsky.social and I are doing a joint talk on how numbers influenced Shakespeare. The venue is the London Interdisciplinary School in Whitechapel. A limited number of seats available, message one of us if you'd like to come.

I’ve been guest on three very different podcasts recently: Your Brain on Climate - numeracy to fight politicians www.yourbrainonclimate.com/1817605/epis... More or Less - Delap's maths trick www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... Shakespeare Unlimited - maths 500 years ago www.folger.edu/podcasts/sha...

I just bought a new toy - it's a fully working giant slide rule that was used for classroom demonstrations in the 1960s. This is what people used for doing tricky calculations, before electronic calculators took over in the late 1970s.

@adamrutherford.bsky.social in case you missed it, we uncovered Delap's mathematical secret, and mentioned Ipswich too.

Liam Delap of Chelsea FC can work out cube roots in his head. Is he a maths genius, or does he have a trick up his sleeve? I investigated with @timharford.ft.com on this week's More or Less. You can listen here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

Whether you like maths or Shakespeare or both (🙋🏻‍♂️) or neither, this interview with @robeastaway.bsky.social is a fascinating listen.

We often pigeonhole people as either a "maths " or an "arts“ person, but in Shakespeare’s time this divide didn’t exist. I spoke with @Folger.edu about why looking at Shakespeare through the eyes of a mathematician can help students to appreciate both disciplines. www.folger.edu/podcasts/sha...

In NSW Australia there are three leaving-school maths exams: Standard, Extension 1 and Extension 2, which roughly equate to our AS, A level and Further. Here's the 2024 Extension 1 paper. I like the quickie questions at the start, which test a range of maths skills www.nsw.gov.au/sites/defaul...

Ok, people saying “myself” instead of “me” is getting irritating now. I blame you, #Traitors

Have you ever heard of "Transient Global Amnesia"? No, I hadn't either, until the 24th July last year, when it happened to me. For a day I forgot everything. Here's the story: robeastaway.com/blog/amnesia

Not been to the new MathsWorld in London yet? Come along on the evening of Thursday 29th Jan. I'm doing a talk on the maths of Shakespeare's London and it's also a chance to play with all the puzzles and exhibits. mathsworld.com/events/Shake...

So happy to be back in nets, the season is just three months away

Step into Shakespeare's London as never before, an evening talk on Thursday 29th January at the amazing new MathsWorld venue, not far from the Globe mathsworld.com/events

We were delighted to host “Shakespeare’s Hidden Numbers” at the library, a fascinating talk by Rob Eastaway, author of Much Ado About Numbers. The session had students laughing and seeing Maths/The Bard in a whole new light. Thank you @kes-mathematics.bsky.social for this opportunity!

29th January, 7pm - I'm doing a talk at MathsWorld London about the Maths of Shakespeare's London. Elizabethan History meets Shakespeare and mathematics. Also a great chance to visit this fabulous new venue which is close to Tate Modern. Advance booking required. mathsworld.com/events/Shake...

Every so often I get a really unusual enquiry about maths. Yesterday it was a call from 5Live, asking for my views on the shape of the table used by the Cabinet. Blog below but TL;DR it's an irregular octagon, but an ellipse would be better. robeastaway.com/blog/cabinet...

Yesterday as a follow-up for @bbc5live I picked five numbers of 2026. They are 48, 78, 2026 itself, 3452 and half a trillion. (TLDL: we need more maths graduates and the World Cup won't be as good as the last one) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/..., starts about 01:45 in.

BBC Radio 5live asked me to pick five numbers of the year. They are 6, 33, 2025 itself, 1 trillion and 67 (sorry). My chat with Marianna Spring starts just over 30 mins in. Happy New Year. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Despite the headline, this is NOT a 'trillions to one' story (that would be the odds of a pre-specified, named person winning twice). This sort of story is newsworthy, but probability theory says we should expect it to happen every so often - and it does! www.bbc.com/news/article...

I loved performing my Much Ado About Numbers show for Year 10s at the Rose Theatre in Kingston yesterday - a theatre based on the plan of the original @roseplayhouse.bsky.social in Southwark. "Swear not by the moon...That monthly changes in her circled orb" (Romeo & Juliet)

I just needed to use Pythagoras in everyday life! We are using tape to mark up a 3-mens morris board on stage. The board need to be about 2.5m square. How much tape do we need? (I make it ~22 metres).

In her SparxMaths homework, I watch a GCSE pupil being asked to fully expand the expression (3x + 5)^4 . To ensure she doesn't cheat with AI she has to answer correctly online AND write out all her workings on paper. Sorry, this isn't maths, it's five minutes of pointless number-crunching.

Top tip: If you're a bill poster, be careful to get the join in the right place. Apply now for your Klarna "debt card". [seen on LinkedIn]

Was Shakespeare an accountant? TL;DR - yes he probably was. Here's my evidence: abmagazine.accaglobal.com/global/artic...

How numbers permeated Shakespeare's work - an extract from Much Ado just published on the website of @folger.edu: www.folger.edu/blogs/shakes...

Today is the day I learned that the LIV Golf tour gets its name from the Roman numerals L I V (= 54). Each tournament has three rounds of 18 holes (=54) and in each round on a par 72 course, if you get a birdie on each hole your score is 54. Top golfing nerdery.

And to finish off the sessions for today, @RobEastaway.bsky.social has found a maths mistake in a late medieval textbook from 1503, showing the early adoption of a new form of arithmetic! robeastaway.com/blog... Grab yourself a copy here: www.peterharrington.... (for a bargain price!)

I was a guest today on Matt Chorley's show on @bbc5live (item starts at around 1hr 37 into the programme), to talk about the importance of maths to the UK economy. Do I get a bonus point for sneaking in a mention of Benford's Law? www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

An interaction at yesterday's launch of #MathsWeekEngland at the new MathsWorld venue near London's Bankside. Mum with child: "What do you call the type of maths that's here at MathsWorld?" Me: "It's officially called 'fun and interesting' maths" Mum: "Ooh, we love this sort of maths"

How GCSE exams are killing enrichment. My story won't surprise most teachers, but those outside the school system might be a bit shocked. robeastaway.com/blog/gcse-bl...

I did an interview on The Science Show on Resonance FM Radio, about the fantastic new MathsWorld which formally launches in London this week. The Maths World item starts at about 49:00, link below: www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/th...

With fortuitous good timing, the day after the #CurriculumReview I have an article in the latest issue of the journal Teaching Shakespeare about building links between maths, Shakespeare and Elizabethan History www.britishshakespeare.ws/wp-content/u...

With fortuitous good timing, the day after the #CurriculumReview I have an article in the latest issue of the journal Teaching Shakespeare about building links between maths, Shakespeare and Elizabethan History www.britishshakespeare.ws/wp-content/u...

It turns out Zohran Mamdani is a cricket fan. "He credits cricket with teaching him about unity and how like-minded people can turn rhetoric into reality". sports.ndtv.com/cricket/the-...

It looks like the curriculum review might bring an end to the grammatical term 'fronted adverbial' which seems to have been invented in 2014. Here's the rant I posted about it the day I first heard it 🙂: robeastaway.com/blog/fronted...

ENGLISH TEACHERS! A bursary of up to £1,000 is available for your dept! On 11th Dec I'm putting on my Y10/11 Much Ado show about Shakespeare numeracy and Elizabethan History at Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. mathsinspiration.com/much-ado-aut... emailATrobeastawayDOTcom for bursary details

BREAKING NEWS! - The final line up has been announced for the Maths Week England Launch event at MathsWorld, London on Saturday 15th November. An entire day of talks, stalls and mathsy activities - come and join in the fun, you won’t want to miss out. AND - be part of a world record breaking attempt

A handy guide to the 6-7 meme that has become a global phenomenon edition.cnn.com/2025/10/18/u...

Excitingly, Today's the opening day of MathsWorld, the new hands-on maths museum in London. I've really enjoyed visiting MathsCity in Leeds, but they've now got a London location too! Details at mathsworld.com