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We love getting fan mail at The Periodic Table of Videos (who doesn't).

But this one went the extra mile.

Seven-year-old Max, from Canada, got in touch with Professor Martyn "Malty?" Poliakoff.

It seems Max is a big fan of our videos, especially our visit to Darmstadt in Germany, where he hopes to visit:

Regular viewers will know Professor Martyn Poliakoff has an obsession with plastic bottles.

Here's just some of the collection from his office at The University of Nottingham.

We first explained the bottle collection - which comes from countless countries around the world - back in 2008 in this Test Tube video.



This week the bottle obsession reared its head again, in this video from our trip to Brazil.



Coincidentally, also this week, I gave The Prof a gift from my recent holiday to Mount Everest.

It was a framed print of this photo, take from the Kala Patthar viewpoint - perhaps the best view of Everest in the Himalayas.


The picture now resides in his office, fighting for attention among the many other bottles!!!

PS: I also brought The Prof a Nepalese bottle for the shelf... But I liked the photo better. Everest is the peak in the middle, below the sun. The peak to the right is Nuptse in the foreground.

I just uploaded a video about the so-called Lucky Numbers.

These numbers are derived using a sieve-type algorithm developed by the acclaimed mathematician Stanislaw Ulam.

The video explains what they are:



The first lucky numbers are 1, 3, 7, 9, 13, 15, 21, 25, 31, 33, 37, 43, 49, 51, 63, 67, 69, 73, 75, 79, 87, 93 and 99.

Checking a few facts, I was just reading a about Stanislaw Ulam.

It turns out he was born and dies on the 13th of the month (13 Apr 1909 - 13 May 1984).

13 is lucky number!

He lived to be 75 years old - another Lucky Number.

And the year of his birth - 1909 - was also the year a film called "The Lucky Number" was released.

Just been clearing my virtual desk top and stumbled over two pictures I was meaning to share.

One is recent and one I have had sitting on my computer for about a year?

First, here's an image that was shared by a Twitter friend was was excited when their lecturer/teacher made a recommendation to the students - this is what they wrote on the board:

Good advice, no?

And secondly this image was sent by a virtual friend who claimed to see a derelict building and thought of the periodic table:

I've been away for a few weeks, fulfilling my childhood dream of seeing Mt Everest.

A few facts and figures about the mountain appear in the latest Numberphile video - getting it out of my system I guess! :)



Anyway, here are a few more pics from the trip for people who are as captivated by the famous mountain as me.

The Periodic Table of Videos has won a Webby Award - described as the internet's version of the Oscars?!

According to its website, the Webbys are "the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet".

The awards are run by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

The judges named us this year's winners in the "reality online film/video" category.

The other nominees were:
Dog Park by Discovery Communications (*)
Failure Club by Yahoo!
100 Monkeys by Getty Images Music
Soldier Brother by National Film Board of Canada

The awards are being presented in New York later this month.

As is tradition, our challenge is to come up with a five-word acceptance speech. Any ideas?

We also might try to go to New York for the event if we can find a few other things to do there - so contact me with any ideas for periodicvideos we could make in the Big Apple!?


The Periodic Table of Videos is a collaboration between The University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry and independent video journalist Brady Haran.

(*) Congratulations Dog Park for winning the "people's choice" vote... Periodic Videos was named the judges' winner.

It's always good to a take a break form work...

Over the last few weeks I went and saw something I've always been fascinated by - Mt Everest!

Of course a three-week break has a downside... including a Himalayan size mountain of unread emails!


Back to work then...