Matthew Thomas Parker (born 22 December 1980) is an Australian recreational mathematician, author, comedian,

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

personality and science communicator based in the United Kingdom. His book ''Humble Pi'' was the first maths book in the UK to be a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller. Parker was the Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at

Queen Mary University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

. He is a former maths teacher and has helped popularise maths via his tours and videos.

Early life and education

Matt Parker was born in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

, Australia, and grew up in the northern suburb of Duncraig. He began showing an interest in maths and science from a young age, and at one point was part of his school's

titration Titration (also known as titrimetry and volumetric analysis) is a common laboratory method of quantitative chemical analysis to determine the concentration of an identified analyte (a substance to be analyzed). A reagent, termed the ''titrant'' ...

team. Parker went to the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany and various other facilitie ...

and started off studying

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, an ...

before he "realized the very real risk of being employable at the end of it." He switched into physics and later mathematics. His love of maths led him to want a job in the subject. While at university, Parker wrote comedy for '' Pelican'', the students' magazine, and produced comedy sketches. Having become interested in comedy, he enrolled on course for stand-up.

Career

After college, Parker taught maths in Australia for a while before moving to London and continuing teaching. He became involved in support education, working with universities and other organizations to arrange maths talks. He later went back to teaching, before stopping after one year. He now helps students communicate mathematics to other people, speaks at schools, does media work, and occasionally writes about maths. His goal is "to get more people more excited about maths." Parker has appeared in numerous

videos, talking about various subjects related to mathematics. He has his own YouTube channel, "Stand-up Maths", with over one million subscribers, and also frequently appears as a guest on other popular channels such as

Brady Haran Brady John Haran (born 18 June 1976) is an Australian-British independent filmmaker and video journalist who produces educational videos and documentary films for his YouTube channels, the most notable being ''Periodic Videos'' and '' Numbe ...

's ''

Numberphile ''Numberphile'' is an educational YouTube channel featuring videos that explore topics from a variety of fields of mathematics. In the early days of the channel, each video focused on a specific number, but the channel has since expanded its ...

'' and

James May James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter of the motoring programme '' Top Gear'' alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond from 2003 until 2015. He also ...

's Head Squeeze (now BritLab). Parker has made videos about unboxing calculators, including the Little Professor; he presents these videos as a member of a fictional "Calculator Appreciation Society". He also appeared in a Tom Scott YouTube video, where they gave tips for users of the London Underground. In 2012, Parker and fellow comedian Timandra Harkness co-wrote a comedy show called Your Days are Numbered: The Maths of Death. They performed the show in Australia, at the Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, on tour around England and in Scotland, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Parker has also toured the UK solo and as part of comedy group Festival of the Spoken Nerd, along with

Helen Arney Helen Arney is a British presenter, stand-up comedian and musician. She has toured with the '' Uncaged Monkeys'' alongside comedian Robin Ince and Professor Brian Cox. Described as a "geek songstress" by the Edinburgh Reporter, Arney plays the ...

and Steve Mould. His first solo tour, ''Matt Parker: Number Ninja,'' finished in July 2013, while his second solo tour, "Matt Parker: Now in 4D", started in late 2014. He has written the book ''Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension''. His second book, ''Humble Pi,'' was released in March 2019 and was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller. In 2014, Parker set up Think Maths, a team of experienced mathematics speakers who visit schools to run workshops and give talks for a wide range of ages and abilities, to show students the wider world of maths beyond school while giving them a chance to develop mathematical thinking skills. Parker is a regular on

BBC Radio Four BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

's '' Infinite Monkey Cage'' with Robin Ince and Brian Cox. He has also talked about maths-related topics on

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, Sky News,

Channel4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in ...

CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...

, and occasionally writes for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. On TV, Parker is a regular commentator on

Discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discover ...

's '' Outrageous Acts of Science''. For the 2019 edition of the

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic each, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825, missing 1939–1942 because of the Second World War. The lectures present sc ...

, televised on BBC Four, Parker assisted presenter

Hannah Fry Hannah Fry (born February 1984) is a British mathematician, author, and radio and television presenter. She is Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. She studies the patterns of human behaviour, ...

in several segments. In October 2017, Parker started a petition to "Update the UK Traffic Signs Regulations to a geometrically correct football." In a YouTube video, he explained why the current football shape on traffic signs is incorrect and geometrically impossible. Parker described the current signs as a "national embarrassment" and said he hopes the petition will "help raise public awareness and appreciation of geometry." Parker discussed the issue on You Can't Polish A Nerd. According to him, the government initially dismissed the petition because he is a comedian. By November 2017, the petition had gained over 22,000 signatures. The UK government has responded by saying "the current football symbol has a clear meaning and is understood by the public. Changing the design to show accurate geometry is not appropriate in this context." Parker said he felt "like the Department for Transport had not read the petition properly". The official response stated it would be too costly to replace the current signs; however, Parker said he only asked for a "precedent for the new signs". In regards to the exact geometry of a football, Parker said he is "not asking for angles and measurements on the sign, just for it to look more like a football". Together with another YouTube mathematics populariser,

Vi Hart Victoria Hart (born 1988), commonly known as Vi Hart (), is an American mathematician and YouTuber. They describe themselves as a "recreational mathemusician" and are well-known for creating mathematical videos on YouTube. Hart founded the virt ...

, Parker won the 2018 Communications Award of the

Joint Policy Board for Mathematics The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) consists of the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The Board has ne ...

for "communicating the excitement of mathematics to a worldwide audience through YouTube videos, TV and radio appearances, book and newspaper writings, and stand-up comedy".

Awards

Parker was awarded the 2020 IMA- LMS Christopher Zeeman Medal in recognition of his "excellence in the communication of mathematics". The award citation highlights work on YouTube, his books, Think Maths, Maths Inspiration, MathsJam, Maths Gear, and his work in broadcast media.

Recreational mathematics contributions

Parker introduced the

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

concept of a grafting number, an

integer An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign ( −1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the languag ...

with the property that the

square root In mathematics, a square root of a number is a number such that ; in other words, a number whose ''square'' (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or  ⋅ ) is . For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16, because . ...

of the integer, when expressed in base ''b,'' will contain the original integer itself before or directly after the decimal point . At the 2016 MathsJam Conference, Parker talked about what he called "letterwise magic squares". He believed he was the first to find the magic squares, but on 5 May 2017 he posted a video to explain how the magic squares were more well known as alphamagic squares.

Personal life

Parker married the English solar physicist

Lucie Green Lucinda "Lucie" May Green (born c. 1975) is a British science communicator and solar physicist. Green is a Professor of Physics and a Royal Society University Research Fellow (previously the Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow) at Mullard S ...

in July 2014. The couple used wedding rings made of

meteoric iron Meteoric iron, sometimes meteoritic iron, is a native metal and early-universe protoplanetary-disk remnant found in meteorites and made from the elements iron and nickel, mainly in the form of the mineral phases kamacite and taenite. Meteoric ir ...

. He now lives in Godalming, England. He has a labrador retriever called Skylab who has her own YouTube channel.

Bibliography

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References

External links

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Festival of the Spoken Nerd
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parker, Matt 1980 births Living people Australian YouTubers Male YouTubers Comedy YouTubers Australian mathematicians Australian male comedians University of Western Australia alumni Recreational mathematicians Mathematics popularizers Australian emigrants to England Australian expatriates in England Writers from Perth, Western Australia Online edutainment Educational and science YouTubers