Dr Tom Crawford

COUNTDOWN. Still can’t believe this happened, but you will now be able to watch me attempting to do maths live on television for the next 3 weeks, starting Monday at 2:10pm @Channel4. So excited to be joining the @C4Countdown family - long live daytime television!!

Best photobomb ever? Still in disbelief I got to spend the afternoon with these incredible creatures. Made friends with a 200kg silverback and a baby born 3-hours earlier - now to teach them some maths…

Exploring lakes and volcanoes at the East African Rift Valley. There are 3 major volcanoes along the Uganda-Rwanda border at the Western edge of the Victoria Plate. Today it continues to move at approximately 2.3mm per year - so how long would it take to cover 1 metre?

Hanging out with my new best friends in Kibale National Park. Humans share 98.8% of their DNA with chimpanzees making them our closest living ancestor. Since we have around 3 billion base pairs, how many are different to chimpanzees?

Lake Victoria. Despite being the 2nd largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, it’s only the 9th largest by volume due to an average depth of 40m. Victoria has approximately 2x the area of Baikal, but a volume around 10x smaller. What is the average depth of Baikal?

Some snaps from the past week on the road giving 6 talks in 5 days. 1. London for Maths in Action with host Bobby Seagull talking Pokémaths. 2. Brasenose College for a workshop on science communication. 3. Pi Day celebrations for Malvern Festival of Ideas. Now for a rest!

NEW VIDEO: Watch me solve Pi = 3 rounds of Countdown to celebrate Pi Day 2026 - where the best possible answers provide clues to the title of my upcoming book. Pre-order your signed copy + Pokémon card here: backstory.london/products/pre-o… youtube.com/watch?v=3eiWwo…

Celebrating Pre-Pi Day with a dose of mathematics with Hung-Hsi Wu & @tomrocksmaths! According to Wu, this is going to be historic! It will be his final talk before a large audience, bringing together a lifetime of insights on what great mathematics education looks like.

Such a great day at Carmel College hosting a Q&A on Oxbridge applications and a lecture on mathematical modelling in video games. The real question though is which Pokémon are you catching from the selection available? Today we had success with Meowth but failed with Mewtwo.

Hats off to @susie_dent for an excellent explanation of the Grelling-Nelson Paradox to take victory in Round 17 of Numbers vs. Words. 300 trillion digits of Pi was unfortunately not enough... Enjoy Pi Day on Saturday 3-14 knowing the 300 trillionth digit is 5 :)

Great fun to visit The Perse School today to give a sneak peek of my upcoming book - thanks to everyone that came along :) There are a few clues on the content in the photos for the eagle-eyed among you… And look out for more exciting book news coming later this week!

Far too excited because IT’S NEARLY PI DAY! Here’s a sneak peak of a very special video I’ve put together to celebrate 3-14 aka the International Day of Mathematics. Featuring Pi, Pi-kachu, Pokémon Cards and Countdown - coming Saturday :)

NEW VIDEO: Detecting Black Holes with Reinhard Genzel. Nobel Prize Laureate Reinhard Genzel explains how we can use gravity to detect black holes, and the important role mentors and sport played in his award-winning career. Premieres today at 8pm (GMT): youtu.be/a2-eKcLwYws

If you've ever wanted to know more about my actual job at Cambridge, this interview is the one for you. I also talk about my background, my journey through Oxbridge, and why outreach is central to everything I do. Let me know what you think :) varsity.co.uk/science/31275

Tattoo 73 - Laplace Transform. A beautiful technique for solving PDEs which I cover in the 2nd year Maths Undergraduate course @Cambridge_Uni. Do you recognise it?

@blondgavster @UniofOxford Nice!

@tomrocksmaths @UniofOxford PDEs. Fluid dynamics. Statistics

You all enjoyed this last time so here’s what I’ve been teaching this week @UniofOxford - which topics do you recognise?

Football appreciation post from the last week: from celebrating winning the league with the Nuffield team at formal on Friday, to watching Brighton beat Forest after running the Half Marathon on Sunday. Watch me explain the geometry of penalty kicks here: youtu.be/54EmUfF1-0c

NEW VIDEO with @Chazingdra: Why Do I Love Pokémon? A privilege to be part of this video tribute to everyone's favourite video game celebrating 30 years. Tell me why YOU love Pokémon in the comments! PS - the answer is obviously mathematical... youtube.com/watch?v=oSkaxm…

Really interesting to talk to MPs at the Houses of Parliament about a possible social media ban for under-16s. Thanks to YouTube for organising and to the brilliant students that shared their views. Whatever happens it’s important young people have a say in the outcome!

Smashed it. 13.1 miles in 1:44:37 with 5 out of 6 Countdown puzzles successfully solved. Thanks to all of the local schools for setting the questions - they were tricky! Love that I look more tired at the start from the 7am wake up (photo 3) than I do after the finish (photo 4).