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Colin Beveridge

Maths, clearly

Colin at the Wimborne Literary Festival. Photo: Haydn Wheeler.

I’m generally happy to talk to schools, libraries, bookshops, organisations, festivals, and anyone else who’s willing to cover my expenses* and a fee**. (Note: I’m afraid it’s currently difficult for me to undertake long-distance trips.)

“This was a brilliant show from the beginning… I definitely look forward to future events from Colin.”
Edinburgh Skeptics

To book or suggest a talk, please email me: talks@colinbeveridge.co.uk.

Here’s me talking at Gathering4Gardner in Atlanta in 2018:

Some of the talks I offer are:

Games, Goats and Gold

Target audience: Year 9
Duration: Modular talk; anything from 30 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes.

Games, Goats and Gold uses popular game shows to demonstrate that thinking clearly about probability isn’t just good for your exams, but has applications in the slightly-more-real but just as arbitrary world of prime time TV.

Exam Technique

Target audience: GCSE/A-level
Duration: 20 minutes

How do you convert “knowing the material” into “doing well in the exam”? In this talk, I discuss some of the tactics and strategies you can employ to make sure you squeeze every last mark out of the paper.

An Unreliable History Of Maths

Target audience: Adults (non-specialist)
Duration: Modular talk; from 30 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes.

I pick about ten pivotal characters from the history of maths and tell their stories – from Evariste Galois, the world’s brainiest idiot, to the legend of Hippasus, to the amazing Grace Hopper.

A Brief History Of Pi

Target audience: Adults (non-specialist)
Duration: 1 hour.

Who comes up with this stuff? In A Brief History Of Pi, I take you through some of the historical highlights of everyone’s favourite irrational constant.

Colin’s masterclass was a whistlestop tour of classic games – think Monty Hall – and the valuable place occupied by mathematics for people who don’t want to fall foul of their tricks. It was an excellent, laid-back source of inspiration and justification for maths in general, with a few opportunities to practise some real maths from secondary school curricula. There was also chocolate.
– Tom Briggs, Education Officer, Bletchley Park

To book or suggest a talk, please email me: colin@flyingcoloursmaths.co.uk.

* Generally, train travel from and to Weymouth, plus an inexpensive B&B and evening meal if necessary.
** I don’t charge a fixed fee; make me an offer based on what you think is reasonable. Whether I can accept depends on how busy I am, and how easy it is to cover childcare.