One of Alan Turing‘s many contributions to mathematics and science during the 20th century was his 1952 paper on “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis” in which he suggested that a simple model of coupled differential equations could account for pattern formation in natural processes such as those found on animal coats. Such models are known as Reaction-Diffusion models, and take the following general form

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On 27th September 2008 I and three friends took part in the Hearts First Bike Ride from Oxford to Cambridge in aid of the British Heart Foundation.

My friends stayed in Oxford overnight and probably started the day with a hearty breakfast. Unfortunately I had to make the start in Cambridge resulting in a 6.00am coach ride from Cambridge, a coach ride I almost missed due to a faulty alarm clock. One coffee cup and a muffin is no way to start a 90 mile bike ride ( or 86.78 according to my GPS ). I completed the ride in just shy of 5 hours, which admittedly is not that great but I use the excuse that it wasn’t a race and I had no one to draft.
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The Unlimited Register Machine (URM), designed by Nigel Cutland, is an abstraction of a computer similar to the Turing Machine – but somewhat easier to get to grips with and more in tune with the operation of a modern computer processor.

It also happens to be the model used by the Open University’s course on Mathematical Logic and Number Theory, and is the reason for this article since I studied the course in 2007.

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On November 2nd I ran my first marathon. It remains to be seen if I will run another, but at least I’ll have done New York. It really is the most awesome experience, the weather was just about perfect and the crowds from start to finish were incredible.

I took a package with Sports Tours International so everything was bought and paid for. Not only was this my first marathon but it was also my first trip to NYC ( If I’m going to see the city, I may as well see 26 miles of it… ) so I didn’t want to have to worry about transfers and getting from A to B, but in the end I doubt this would have been much of a problem.

Unfortunately the route information is missing from the map below, but this link should show it accurately. Alternatively, you can download the kml file directly for Google Earth.

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