Benjamin Burton

Welcome to my website at benburton.org!
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Mathematics:
I am a half-mathematician, half-computer scientist at The University of Queensland (UQ),
in Brisbane, Australia. For more on my mathematics, see:
- My university website at UQ;
- Regina, a large body of software for
computational topology that I have been working on for over 20 years now.
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Outreach programmes:
I spend a lot of time with outreach programmes for talented secondary school students
in mathematics and computer science. These include:
- The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI),
which is the premier competition for programing and algorithm design for secondary school students.
I spent 10 years as a leader of the Australian delegation,
and I am currently an elected member of the International Committee that oversees the IOI.
We also hosted IOI 2013 in Brisbane, Australia!
- The National Mathematics Summer School (NMSS), which gives
talented and enthusiastic secondary students a taste of research, and what doing mathematics
is really like. I have been involved as a tutor and lecturer for over two decades,
and currently serve as Director of NMSS.
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iPhone/iPad/Watch apps:
I write apps in my spare time; all of these are apps that I use myself.
They include:
- Modular Arithmetic,
to do arithmetic modulo N;
- PDF Projector,
to project your PDF slideshows onto an external screen;
- References,
to browse through your BibTeX databases;
- Talk Timer,
to discreetly track time while you give a talk;
- Inkpad Libre,
which is the open-source continuation of Steve Sprang’s excellent vector graphics app for the iPad.
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Social Media:
I mainly use social media for social purposes (so, for instance,
you won’t see much mathematics there).
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Instagram (@burton.bab):
Most of my social media activity is here.
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Twitter (@BurtonBA):
I use twitter very, very rarely, but this is my account.
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Facebook:
I am largely avoiding Facebook completely these days;
you will find me there but please don’t assume I’m paying any attention. :slightly_smiling_face: