Rob Eastaway

Rob Eastaway (www.robeastaway.com) is a consultant, writer and speaker. He specialises in Popular Maths, Cricket, and Creative Problem-Solving. Rob is the Director of Maths Inspiration, a national programme of theatre-based lecture shows for 15-17 year olds that has reached over 200,000 teenagers since it began in 2004.  He also regularly gives talks to all age groups in primary and secondary schools.

Rob also does a lot of national and local radio, usually to talk about maths in everyday life, or about ways to make maths more engaging for adults and children.  He has appeared numerous times on Radio 4’s Today Programme, You and Yours, Open Book and Broadcasting House.  He is probably best known for appearances on More or Less, presented by Tim Harford.

Rob works closely with National Numeracy, the national charity that campaigns for better adult numeracy and in 2017 he received the Zeeman medal for excellence in communication of maths to the general public.

He has been writing books for over twenty years and his titles include cricket book What is a Googly? The Mysteries of Cricket Explained (new edition published June 2019), popular maths titles Why do Buses Come in Threes? The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life, How Long is a Piece of String? More Hidden Maths of Everyday Life, Mindbenders: Where Maths Meets Creativity (new edition published in 2018 as Maddening Mindbending Puzzles),  The Hidden Maths of Sport and How Many Socks Make a Pair? and Maths On The Back Of An Envelope.

Memory titles include children’s book How to Remember (almost) Everything Ever and Improve Your Memory Today, published by Pavilion Books.   After the success of Maths for Mums and Dads and the sequel More Maths for Mums and Dads: The Teenage Years, Random House published  Maths on the Go: 101 Fun Ways to Play with Maths, co-authored with Mike Askew.

Watkins published Any Ideas: Tips and Techniques to Help You Think Creatively. Rob’s latest book, Maths On The Back Of An Envelope: Clever Ways to (roughly) Calculate Anything will be published by Atlantic Books in collaboration with New Scientist in October 2023.

“Great talk, just bought the book can’t wait to learn and refine my understanding of math with these techniques.”

“This made things a lot easier. Very good explanation. I just bought 2 books because i want to know more about this! 1 for myself of course and 1 to give away!. Thank you very much!”

“Ordered the book on the back of this!”

Watch Rob on YouTube:  How to Do Maths Without a Calculator - with Rob Eastaway

Listen to Rob on BBC Radio 4’s More or Less for some pub quiz joy involving pencils and Roman numerals : https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000jf6r or listen to his podcast at https://puzzlingmaths1.podbean.com

Test Match Special (.mp3)

BBC Radio 4 More or Less: Behind the Stats, Numbers of the year 2023

Professor Mike Askew

Professor Mike Askew is a Visiting Distinguished Professor of Maths Education at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.   He was previously Foundation Professor of Primary Education at Monash University, Melbourne, Professor of Maths Education at King’s College, University of London and Director of BEAM Education. He has directed many influential research projects and in April 2018 he was President of the Mathematical Association from 2019-20.

He is author of numerous academic and educational maths books including two volumes of Transforming Primary Mathematics published by Routledge. He is also Series Editor of the MathsBeat series, published by OUP and Hodder Cambridge Primary Mathematics, published by Hodder & Stoughton.

He has also turned his hand to popular maths titles and is co-author of Maths for Mums and Dads, More Maths for Mums and Dads and Maths on the Go, all published by Square Peg (Random House) and The Bedside Book of Geometry, published by New Burlington Books.  In addition Hodder & Stoughton published Mathematics in the All that Matters series. A recent project of Mike's was a series of four Key Stage 1 titles for Ruby Tuesday Books, entitled Let’s Measure It, Let’s Multiply & Divide, Let’s Add & Subtract and Let’s Have Fun with Shapes.

In 2021 Mike's writing on 'Reasoning as a mathematical habit of mind' was selected to be included in Princeton University's anthology The Best Writing on Mathematics, that brings together the year’s finest mathematics writing from around the world. Mike is also an accomplished magician.