The Summer of Math Exposition (SoME) is an annual competition organized by 3Blue1Brown to foster the creation of excellent math content online.
During the last semester, I had the pleasure of working with a team of students in developing a video about mathematics. It is about Burnside's Lemma from algebra, made by Samuel Asmeron, Thomas de Boer, Anna Heikamp, and Daan Hoogcarspel, students in the bachelor in mathematics of the University of Amsterdam. Beautifully made and beautifully explained! You can view the video below.
We have submitted this video to SoME2 and beginning of September we heard that we made in the top 100 (top 10%)! This was amazing news! Unfortunately we didn't make it in the top 20, but we are still really proud of our work!
3blue1brown, created by Grant Sanderson, is primarily a YouTube channel about discovery and creativity in math. On their site, you can find written versions of many of these lessons, often with more interactive elements sprinkled in.
Topics tend to fall into one of two categories:
Those people might be seeking out, like linear algebra, neural networks, calculus, Fourier transforms, quantum mechanics, etc.
Problems in math which many people may not have heard of, and which seem quite challenging at first, but where some shift in perspective makes it both doable and beautiful.
Loosely speaking, the first category motivates math by its usefulness, and the second motivates math as an art form. But of course, the line dividing these two is easily blurred.
On the webiste of SoME you can find a video with tips on how to create a math explainer. You can also find the top 20 submission of last year, this is a wonderful collection of submissions to explore! In a couple of weeks the top 20 submissions of this year will also be presented. If you are interested in animated content then you should definitely have a look at their website.
During SoME submissions are assessed on four aspects: clarity, motivation, novelty, memorability and length. If you have some ideas for mathematical topics that would be cool and interesting to animate you can send us a suggestion at editor@networkpages.nl.
During the last semester, I had the pleasure of working with eleven great teams of students in various projects. All of these projects aimed at improving the teaching and communication of mathematics in society.
Back in 2015, I joined the Movember health movement, a movement that you probably have heard of having something related to men growing a moustache. As a woman, you might imagine, I did not join for the moustache thing, but rather for the cause behind the moustache symbol, that is, raising awareness of prostate and testicular cancer.
Last January I was very pleased to attend an annual summer school in discrete mathematics in Valparaíso, Chile. It was the very first time for me to attend such a summer school overseas as a master’s student. It was a wonderful journey, especially when discussing mathematics.
