Some sad personal news: my father died last night, of pneumonia acquired while being treated for metastatic lung cancer. He was a month shy of his eightieth birthday, and went peacefully in his sleep - though sadly not at home, as he'd have wanted. He'd had a storied life, first as an Air Force pilot, then as an Air Force general, then as a GIS expert, then as a maths teacher for the Open University. He showed me the beauty of mathematics, and I'm sure he did the same for many others. He was arrested for spying on a school trip to Czechoslovakia in the Fifties (he was just a kid who liked taking pictures of planes, but it turns out they don't like that sort of thing in Communist countries); forty years later he went back to help the Czech Army integrate itself into the NATO command structure, and they showed him all their WW3 plans for a laugh. For a while he was the author of the longest Ada program in the world (for his Defence Fellowship thesis, which one of his examiners described as "an extraordinary piece of applied maths"). He visited over sixty countries from Greenland to New Zealand, flew round the world several times, flew to Fiji by dead reckoning when his inertial navigation system crashed in the middle of the Pacific, and was on a cruise in Alaska when his illness made itself known just under three months ago. He was presented with a CBE by the Queen at Buckingham Palace, I dedicated my PhD thesis to him, and he was Rickrolled at #BigMathsJam for going more than a minute over his five-minute slot. He is survived by his son (me), and my mother, his wife of 52 years. Gonna miss you, Dad.

Approximately 4.3% of the people at this year's #BigMathsJam were called Sam - and here we all are! @BigMathsJam

Experiencing a bit of re-entry syndrome after another fantastic weekend at #BigMathsJam. Huge thanks as always to @ColinTheMathmo, @sam_hartburn, @samholloway, @alisonkiddle, @christianp, @standupmaths, @peterrowlett, @mscroggs, @SparksMaths, @stecks, and everyone else who helped make it happen!

The Hamish circle theorem badge #bigmathsjam @Dragon_Dodo @alisonkiddle

The winning assignment for the Garden Gala watering can competition was 1, 1, 1, 1, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16 #BigMathsJam

Home from an excellent weekend at @BigMathsJam. So great to see folks. #BigMathsJam

Top answers for the Generic Game at #BigMathsJam
There were 73 entries

Mathematician:
Euler: 35
Pythagoras: 15

Branch of Mathematics
Algebra: 23
Geometry: 16

A Famous Mathematical Set
Empty: 20
Mandelbrot: 17

A fruit
Apple: 42
Banana: 20

A colour
Red: 37
Blue: 18

1 Bill was split by 2 women, 3 men, out of 5 Portuguese, one of them paid 8 £ and 13 £ of his share of 21 £ to two of the others... Heading back from #BigMathsJam 2024.

@BigMathsJam 2024 is officially over. See you next time in 2025! If I can't go physically again then, there's always online thanks to Gather Town #bigmathsjam #mathsjam #remotees

After a run of "recreational thing is secretly serious thing" talks, this year I switched things up with a talk about how the Pigeonhole Principle can help fight climate change. #BigMathsJam #mathsjam

Music is playing in Merry Martyn's data analysis of Titanic passenger birthdays #bigmathsjam #mathsjam

@pozorvlak says geometric info can be represented by a vector (👍) vs a raster (👎)

Potential HOT or NOT for @chalkdustmag? #mathsjam #bigmathsjam

If I want to visit the Netherlands in the future, maybe I should remember the mathematical landmarks @snowpinga is mentioning #bigmathsjam #mathsjam

ChatGPT mentioned in Ben Handley's @BigMathsJam talk! #bigmathsjam #mathsjam

Matt Peperell has been checking out Pythagorean triples where the sides are all integers. Those in his table follow the formulae
(m^2-n^2, 2mn, m^2+n^2)
with positive integers n & m
#mathsjam #bigmathsjam

Me, @mscroggs & @Pecnut have all seen an Oxford pub Rose & Crown do pints of sausages, but is there a way to make them do the same for tomatoes? LA sells pints of tomatoes in supermarkets apparently #PintOfTomatoes #mathsjam #bigmathsjam

@andrewt's blank paper competition somehow won the competition competition #mathsjam #bigmathsjam #competitioncompetition

I feel the "Behold! A Competition!" competition is a re-badge of the game "Colin Wins!" from my Hypergame Paradox talk a few years ago. #BigMathsJam #mathsjam

@mscroggs is ready to announce the competition, competition competition, etc. results! #mathsjam #bigmathsjam