News

Watch Oxford Mathematicians, from students to teachers, discuss the study of this most beautiful and powerful of subjects. The film explains how to apply, the choices available, your day-to-day mathematical life including the tutorial system and your college life, and the world of opportunities that a maths degrees opens up.

The scientific programme of the International Congress of Mathematicians 2014 has been announced. Many congratulations to Ben Green and Jonathan Pila who have been invited to give two of the plenary lectures, and to Konstantin Ardakov, David Conlon, Terry Lyons and Tom Sanders who have been invited to give section lectures. The ICM 2014 will take place in Seoul, Korea, August 13-21.

Jan Obloj was awarded 1.2M Euro Starting Grant by the European Research Council for his project "Robust Financial Mathematics: model-ambigious framework for valuation and risk management". He is among the 11 mathematicians selected in the 2013 StG ERC call. Congratulations!

Martin Klimmek's doctoral thesis "On inverse problems in mathematical finance" won the 2012 Bruti-Liberati Prize. Congratulations!

The Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, has announced the appointment of 22 new Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders. Professors Steve Shkoller and John Wettlaufer from Oxford Mathematics were among the awardees, Steve for his analysis of moving free-boundary problems in fluid dynamics and John for his work on applicable physical mathematics at the interface.

"> ">

Marcus Du Sautoy, Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, is delivering a series of filmed public lectures today and tomorrow, 05 and 06 September, in the new Mathematical Institute building in Oxford covering a range of mathematical themes. The talks are targeted at a general audience and students keen to pursue mathematics at university. A few places remain. Please contact Dyrol Lumbard (@email).

Thursday 05 September, 13.00-14.30. The Music of the Primes: a talk about the Riemann Hypothesis and primes

Thursday 05 September 15.00-16.30. Symmetry: a talk based on his second book, 'Finding Moonshine'

Friday 06 September 13.00-14.30. The Secret Mathematicians: the connections between maths and the arts

Friday 06 September 15.00-16.30. The Irrational, the chaotic and incomplete: the mathematical limits of knowledge

Please note these lectures will be video-taped to air on a Japanese public television station (NHK) this autumn. By attending these lectures, you are giving NHK your consent to possibly appear on this television programme without any compensation or credit.

Marcus Du Sautoy is passionate about the connection between the Arts and the Sciences. In their new show in London's Science Museum from 10-16 October 2013, Marcus and Victoria Gould use mathematics and the theatre to navigate the known and unknown reaches of our world.  What is the shape of the universe? Is it finite or infinite? Does it have an edge?

The University of Oxford's new mathematics building will be named the Andrew Wiles Building, in line with the wish expressed by the principal benefactors at the time of their original gift in 2005, and in celebration of one of Oxford's most distinguished mathematicians.

Professor Sir Andrew Wiles, KBE, FRS, read mathematics at Merton College, Oxford, coming up in 1971. He went on to do his PhD under John Coates at Cambridge before moving to Princeton, first to the Institute for Advanced Study and then as a Professor at Princeton University. He was in Oxford as a Royal Society Research Professor from 1988 to 1990, and returned again to Oxford in 2011 to a Royal Society 2010 Anniversary Chair. He was knighted in 2000.

Andrew Wiles has made huge contributions to number theory, starting with his work on the arithmetic of elliptic curves with John Coates and on Iwasawa Theory over the rational numbers with Barry Mazur. But above all, he is known for his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, published in 1995.

The asteroid formerly known as 4196 T-2 is also named in his honour.

Dry- eye syndrome affects millions of people around the world. Caused by a decrease in the quantity and quality of tears, it leads to discomfort, dryness, a burning sensation in the eyes and even a loss of sight.

‘Tears of Happiness’ is the brainchild of Dr Vladimir Zubkov, researcher in the Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics (OCCAM), part of Oxford Mathematics. Vlad’s idea was to combine mathematics and art to focus on sufferers of the syndrome. Vlad has spent the last two years working in the field, modelling the syndrome and its potential solutions.

His inspiration was a fine art competition based on the themes of dry-eye syndrome. Over 800 artworks from around the world including Russia, Finland, USA, Argentina, and India have been submitted.  

Vlad says: “My collaborator, Professor. Anthony Bron from Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology in Oxford, told me a lot of interesting facts about human tears. For example a child does not produce tears during the first few months of its life. And during childhood we blink several times less that when we are adults. But the fact that amazed me the most is that crying is good for us! Tears are incredibly good for our eyes, something we should be happy about. Above all I hope that my research work will enable us to understand better how to treat dry-eye syndrome and that in particular this competition will shine a light on the issue”.

Details of the competition and some of the entries can be found at http://www.haptears.com/en/idea.html

Balazs Szendroi, University Lecturer in Mathematics and Fellow of St Peter's College, is one of seven newly appointed Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellows. The award will enable Balazs to pursue his research into cohomological Donaldson-Thomas theory: structures and examples.