Please note that the list below only shows forthcoming events, which may not include regular events that have not yet been entered for the forthcoming term. Please see the past events page for a list of all seminar series that the department has on offer.

 

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 09:00 -
Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:00
Mathematical Institute

Cascading Principles - a major mathematically inspired art exhibition by Conrad Shawcross - extended until June 2026

Further Information

Oxford Mathematics is delighted to be hosting one of the largest exhibitions by the artist Conrad Shawcross in the UK. The exhibition, Cascading Principles: Expansions within Geometry, Philosophy, and Interference, brings together over 40 of Conrad's mathematically inspired works from the past seventeen years. Rather than in a gallery, they are placed in the working environment of the practitioners of the subject that inspired them, namely mathematics.

Conrad Shawcross models scientific thought and reasoning within his practice. Drawn to mathematics, physics, and philosophy from the early stages of his artistic career, Shawcross combines these disciplines in his work. He places a strong emphasis on the nature of matter, and on the relativity of gravity, entropy, and the nature of time itself. Like a scientist working in a laboratory, he conceives each work as an experiment. Modularity is key to his process and many works are built from a single essential unit or building block. If an atom or electron is a basic unit for physicists, his unit is the tetrahedron.

Unlike other shapes, a tetrahedron cannot tessellate with itself. It cannot cover or form a surface through its repetition - one tetrahedron is unable to fit together with others of its kind. Whilst other shapes can sit alongside one another without creating gaps or overlapping, tetrahedrons cannot resolve in this way. Shawcross’ Schisms are a perfect demonstration of this failure to tessellate. They bring twenty tetrahedrons together to form a sphere, which results in a deep crack and ruptures that permeate its surface. This failure of its geometry means that it cannot succeed as a scientific model, but it is this very failure that allows it to succeed as an art work, the cracks full of broad and potent implications.

The show includes all Conrad's manifold geometric and philosophical investigations into this curious, four-surfaced, triangular prism to date. These include the Paradigms, the Lattice Cubes, the Fractures, the Schisms, and The Dappled Light of the Sun. The latter was first shown in the courtyard of the Royal Academy and subsequently travelled all across the world, from east to west, China to America.

The show also contains the four Beacons. Activated like a stained-glass window by the light of the sun, they are composed of two coloured, perforated disks moving in counter rotation to one another, patterning the light through the non-repeating pattern of holes, and conveying a message using semaphoric language. These works are studies for the Ramsgate Beacons commission in Kent, as part of Pioneering Places East Kent.

The exhibition Cascading Principles: Expansions within Geometry, Philosophy, and Interference is curated by Fatoş Üstek, and is organised in collaboration with Oxford Mathematics. 

The exhibition is open 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday. Some of the works are in the private part of the building and we shall be arranging regular tours of that area. If you wish to join a tour please email @email.

The exhibition runs until 30 June 2026. You can see and find out more here.

Watch the four public talks centred around the exhibition (featuring Conrad himself).

The exhibition is generously supported by our longstanding partner XTX Markets.

Images clockwise from top left of Schism, Fracture, Paradigm and Axiom

Schism Fracture

Axiom Paradigm

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 09:00 -
Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00
Mezzanine

Kathleen Hyndman - Nature+Maths=Art

Further Information

The Mathematical Institute is delighted to be hosting a major exhibition of artist Kathleen Hyndman's mathematically inspired work.

The exhibition of drawings and paintings illustrate Hyndman’s desire to see nature and the world around her in mathematical sequences and geometrical patterns. Golden Section proportions and angles, prime numbers as well as Fibonacci numbers and eccentric constructions are all used to create works achieving a calm and balanced unity.

Born in Essex, Hyndman trained at Kingston-upon-Thames School of Art and exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, including MOMA Oxford and the Hayward Annual in London. As well as a full time artist, she was also a teacher and mother of two. She lived and had her studio in Kingston Bagpuize in Oxfordshire and had exhibitions at Zuleika Gallery in Woodstock until her death in 2022.

Open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.

The exhibition is curated by Zuleika Gallery and Professor Martin Kemp FBA, and will run until June 2026.

Exhibition brochure

Bottom from left:  Hot Breeze, 1994; Heat, 1976; Exit (a seventeen sided work), 1993; Straight Line Rotation, White on Black. Forest, 1986

Below: film of the exhibition by Evan Nedyalkov

Wed, 25 Mar 2026

11:00 - 13:00
L4

Large-N Methods and Renormalisation Group

Léonard Ferdinand
(Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences )
Abstract

I will review how the large N expansion can be used in the context of the renormalisation group to probe some strongly coupled regimes. In particular, I will discuss a work by Gawedzki and Kupiainen where the authors study the three-dimensional non-Gaussian infrared fixed point of Phi^4 in the case of a hierarchical model of rank-one covariance, and explain how their approach could generalise to more realistic models. 

This is a joint work with Ajay Chandra.  

Thu, 26 Mar 2026

11:00 - 13:00
L3

Mathematics behind perturbative quantisation of gauge theories on curved spacetimes

Kasia Rejzner
(University of York)
Abstract
In this talk I will briefly introduce the framework of perturbative algebraic quantum field theory (pAQFT), which is a mathematically rigorous formulation of perturbative QFT that works on a large class of Lorentzian manifolds (globally hyperbolic ones). Then I will focus on the problem of quantisation of gauge theories, which is performed using the Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) framework. I will also discuss the connection to the factorization algebras framework of Costello and Gwilliam.
 


 

Thu, 26 Mar 2026

15:00 - 17:00
L3

Renormalisation group on Lorentzian manifolds using (p)AQFT

Kasia Rejzner
(University of York)
Abstract

I will start the talk by discussing renormlisation group in perturbative algebraic quantum field theory (pAQFT) and its non-perturbative incarnation acting on the Buchholz-Fredenhagen dynamical C*-algebra. I will also explain how pAQFT can be used to derive functional renormlisation group (FRG) equations that generalize Wetterich equations to globally hyperbolic Lorentzian manifolds and arbitrary states (beyond the usual FRG in the vacuum).

Fri, 27 Mar 2026
16:00
L4

On indefinite ternary quadratic forms

Peter Sarnak
(IAS Princeton)
Abstract

We describe the solution to two problems concerning indefinite integral ternary quadratic forms. The first about anisotropic forms was popularized by Margulis following his solution of the Oppenheim Conjecture. The second about the density of isotropic forms was raised by Serre. Joint work with A. Gamburd, A. Ghosh and J. Whang.

Wed, 01 Apr 2026
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.

Tue, 21 Apr 2026
16:00
L5

Ulam Stability of Approximate *-Homomorphisms and Rigidity of Corona C*-Algebras

Ilijas Farah
(York University, Toronto)
Abstract

The problem of stability of approximate homomorphisms was first posed by S. Ulam in the context of groups equipped with a metric. If $G$ and $H$ are groups and $H$ is equipped with a metric $d$, then $\varphi\colon G\to H$ is an $\varepsilon$-homomorphism if $d(\varphi(xy), \varphi(x)\varphi(y))\leq \varepsilon$ for all $x,y\in G$. Ulam’s well-studied problem asks how closely such a map can be approximated by a true homomorphism.
Analogous questions have been investigated in many algebraic and analytic settings. For C*-algebras, the notion of an $\varepsilon$-*-homomorphism admits several possible formalizations. The variant I will discuss, while perhaps not the most immediate, turns out to be particularly interesting, because its associated Ulam stability problem is closely related to rigidity for corona C*-algebras. Namely, Ulam stability of $\varepsilon$-*-isomorphisms between C*-algebras in a certain class (e.g., AF algebras) is equivalent to the rigidity question for coronas of direct sums of C*-algebras in this class.

 

Mon, 27 Apr 2026

15:30 - 16:30
L3

Fractional Black-Scholes model and Girsanov transform for sub-diffusions

Prof. Zhen-Qing Chen
(University of Washington)
Abstract

We propose a novel Black-Scholes model under which the stock price processes are modeled by stochastic differential equations driven  by sub-diffusions. The new framework can capture the less financial activity phenomenon during the bear markets while having the classical Black-Scholes model as its special case. The sub-diffusive spot market is arbitrage-free but is in general incomplete. We investigate the pricing for European-style contingent claims under this new model. For this, we study the Girsanov transform for sub-diffusions and use it to find risk-neutral probability measures for the new Black-Scholes model. Finally, we derive the explicit formula for the price of European call options and show that it can be determined by a partial differential equation (PDE) involving a fractional derivative in time, which we coin a time-fractional Black-Scholes PDE.

Mon, 27 Apr 2026

16:30 - 17:30
L4

Stationary points of conformally invariant polyconvex energies

Dr. André Guerra
(Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics University of Cambridge)
Abstract

In this talk I will discuss recent work, with R. Tione, on the regularity of stationary points for a class of planar polyconvex integrands which are conformally-invariant, a natural assumption in view of geometric applications. We prove that, in two dimensions, stationary points are smooth away from a discrete set. We also show full C^1-regularity for orientation-preserving solutions, which appear naturally in minimization problems of Teichmüller type.

Tue, 28 Apr 2026
16:00
L5

TBC

Hanna Oppelmayer
(Innsbruck University)
Abstract

to follow

Thu, 30 Apr 2026

14:00 - 15:00
(This talk is hosted by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory)

TBA

Tobias Weinzierl
(Durham University)
Abstract

TBA

Thu, 30 Apr 2026

16:00 - 17:00
L5

TBA

Dr. Hans Buehler
((Mathematical Institute University of Oxford))
Abstract

TBA

Fri, 01 May 2026

11:00 - 12:00
L4

Global stability and persistence for reaction systems and for generalized Lotka-Volterra systems 

Prof Gheorghe Craciun
(Dept of Mathematics University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Abstract

Reaction systems are continuos-time dynamical systems with polynomial right-hand side, and are very common in biochemistry, cell signaling, population dynamics, and many other biological applications. We discuss global stability (i.e., the existence of a globally attracting point) and persistence (i.e., robust absence of extinction) for large classes of reaction systems. In particular, we describe recent progress on the proof of the Global Attractor Conjecture (which says that vertex-balanced reaction systems are globally stable) and the Persistence Conjecture (which says that weakly-reversible reaction systems are persistent), and how these results can be extended outside their classical setting using the notion of “disguised reaction systems". We will also discuss analogous results for the case where reaction systems are replaced by generalized Lotka-Volterra systems of arbitrary degree. 

Mon, 04 May 2026
14:15
L4

TBA

Nigel Hitchin
((Mathematical Institute University of Oxford))
Mon, 04 May 2026

16:30 - 17:30
L4

TBA

Dr. Claudia Garcia
(Universidad de Granada)
Abstract

TBA

Tue, 05 May 2026
13:00
L2

The Bootstrap Siege of M-theory

Andrea Guerrieri
(City University )
Abstract
In recent years, analytic and numerical Bootstrap methods have emerged as powerful tools to probe non-perturbative aspects of quantum field theory and quantum gravity. In this talk I will discuss the nonperturbative S-matrix Bootstrap approach to scattering amplitudes in maximal supergravity. After a brief overview of the method, I will review earlier results obtained in this framework, including bounds on the Wilson coefficient of the R^4 operator in D=9,10,11, and the observation that string and M-theory amplitudes appear to lie on the boundary of the allowed bootstrap region. I will then present preliminary results for the higher dimensional corrections like the D^4 R^4 interaction in eleven dimensions and show how the resulting constraints on the non-perturbative M-theory scattering amplitude match expectations from string/M-theory.


 

Tue, 05 May 2026
14:00
L6

TBC

Eric Opdam
(University of Amsterdam)
Abstract

to follow

Tue, 05 May 2026
16:00
L5

TBC

Eleftherios Kastis
(University of Lancaster)
Abstract

to follow

Thu, 07 May 2026

14:00 - 15:00
Lecture Room 3

TBA

Po-Ling Loh
(Cambridge)
Abstract

TBA

Thu, 07 May 2026
16:00
Lecture Room 4

TBA

Lilybelle Cowland Kellock
(University of Manchester)
Fri, 08 May 2026
16:00
L1

TBA

Prof. Zaher Hani
(University of Michigan)
Abstract

TBA

Mon, 11 May 2026

15:30 - 16:30
L3

TBA

Prof. Greg Pavliotis
(Imperial)
Abstract

TBA

Tue, 12 May 2026
14:00
L6

TBC

Jan Grabowksi
(University of Lancaster)
Abstract

to follow

Thu, 14 May 2026

14:00 - 15:00
Lecture Room 3

Numerical analysis of oscillatory solutions of compressible flows

Prof Dr Maria Lukacova
(Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
Abstract

Speaker Prof Dr Maria Lukacova will talk about 'Numerical analysis of oscillatory solutions of compressible flows'

 

Oscillatory solutions of compressible flows arise in many practical situations.  An iconic example is the Kelvin-Helmholtz problem, where standard numerical methods yield oscillatory solutions. In such a situation,  standard tools of numerical analysis for partial differential equations are not applicable. 

We will show that structure-preserving numerical methods converge in general to generalised solutions, the so-called dissipative solutions. 
The latter describes the limits of oscillatory sequences. We will concentrate on the inviscid flows, the Euler equations of gas dynamics, and mention also the relevant results obtained for the viscous compressible flows, governed by the Navier-Stokes equations.

We discuss a concept of K-convergence that turns a weak convergence of numerical solutions into the strong convergence of
their empirical means to a dissipative solution. The latter satisfies a weak formulation of the Euler equations modulo the Reynolds turbulent stress.  We will also discuss suitable selection criteria to recover well-posedness of the Euler equations of gas dynamics. Theoretical results will be illustrated by a series of numerical simulations.  

 

 

Mon, 18 May 2026

16:30 - 17:30
L4

TBA

Prof. Agnieszka Świerczewska-Gwiazda
(University of Warsaw)
Abstract

TBA

Tue, 19 May 2026
16:00
L5

TBC

Shanshan Hua
(Münster)
Abstract

to follow

Wed, 20 May 2026
15:00
L4

Quantitative Orbit Equivalence for $\mathbb{Z}$-odometers

Spyridon Petrakos
(Gothenberg)
Abstract

It is known for a long time, due to a celebrated theorem of Ornstein and Weiss, that (classical/plain) orbit equivalence offers no information about ergodic probability measure preserving actions of amenable groups. On the other hand, conjugacy is too intractable, and effectively hopeless to study in full generality. Quantitative orbit equivalence aims to bridge this gap by adding intermediate layers of rigidity— a strategy that has borne fruit already in the late 1960s but was used as a general framework only semi-recently. In this talk, Spyridon Petrakos will introduce aspects of quantitative orbit equivalence and present a complete picture of it for integer odometers. This is joint work with Petr Naryshkin.

Thu, 21 May 2026

12:00 - 13:00
L3

TITLE TBC

Alice Thorneywork
(Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford)
Thu, 21 May 2026

14:00 - 15:00
Lecture Room 3

TBA

Matthew J. Colbrook
(Cambridge)
Abstract

TBA 

Thu, 21 May 2026
16:00
Lecture Room 4

TBA

Netan Dogra
(King's College London)
Mon, 25 May 2026

14:00 - 15:00
Lecture Room 3

TBA

Professor Juan Peypouquet
(University of Groningen, The Netherlands)
Abstract

TBA