Tue, 02 Jun 2026
16:00
16:00
L5
Tue, 28 Apr 2026
16:00
16:00
L5
The Public and Community Engagement with Research (PCER) team in Research Services is once again celebrating colleagues doing brilliant public and community engagement work. Building on the success of last term, we’ve reopened nominations and are asking you to nominate people who you think deserve to be recognised.
1 April 2026 marks the 250th birthday of Sophie Germain, who is remembered for major contributions to mathematics, ranging from advances in number theory related to Fermat’s Last Theorem to foundational results in elasticity theory. We will celebrate her life and work through four talks for a general audience.
Wed, 01 Apr 2026
18:00
18:00
The Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4BS
Oxford Mathematics London Public Lecture: Sophie Germain and prime numbers - James Maynard
James Maynard
Further Information
April 1 is French mathematician Sophie Germain's 250th birthday. Her work focused on prime numbers where her fundamental contribution was to connect Fermat’s Last Theorem with questions on the distribution of those numbers. Fermat’s last Theorem is solved, but questions raised by Sophie remain unsolved and relevant now over 200 years later, with important links to internet cryptography as well as pure mathematics. James Maynard will describe Sophie Germain’s work, its relevance to the modern day, and progress towards resolving the questions she asked.
Oxford Mathematician James Maynard is recognised as one of our leading contemporary mathematicians. In 2022 he won a Fields Medal, the highest honour in mathematics.
Please email @email to register to attend in person.
James' talk forms part of an afternoon celebrating Sophie Germain's life and work, with talks by Oxford Mathematician Lukas Brantner on Sophie's life, Ana Caraiani (Imperial College) on Sophie's favourite problem, and Laura Monk (University of Bristol) on Sophie's work on the theory of elastic surfaces.
To find out more and register for the whole afternoon please click here.
The public lecture will be broadcast on the Oxford Mathematics YouTube Channel on Wednesday 29 April at 5-6 pm and any time after (no need to register for the online version).
The afternoon is kindly sponsored by the International Centre for the Mathematical Sciences (ICMS). The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.