We run regular Public Lectures that enable anyone with an interest in the subject to see the best mathematicians in action and to share the pleasure (and occasional pain) of this most important of subjects. For booking information please click on the abstract for each lecture.
If you can't be here in person you can always view online. Jump down to Public Lectures and interviews online.
You can view and download posters from previous events.
Prime numbers have intrigued, inspired and infuriated mathematicians for millennia and yet mathematicians' difficulty with answering simple questions about them reveals their depth and subtlety.
Join Vicky to learn about recent progress towards proving the famous Twin Primes Conjecture and to hear the very different ways in which these breakthroughs have been made - a solo mathematician working in isolation, a young mathematician displaying creativity at the start of a career, a large collaboration that reveals much about how mathematicians go about their work.
Vicky Neale is Whitehead Lecturer at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Supernumerary Fellow at Balliol College.
Please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to register.
Can mathematics really help us in our fight against infectious disease? Join Julia Gog as we explore some exciting current research areas where mathematics is being used to study pandemics, viruses and everything in between, with a particular focus on influenza.
Julia Gog is Professor of Mathematical Biology, University of Cambridge and David N Moore Fellow at Queens’ College, Cambridge.
Please email: external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to regsiter
There is a deep connection between the stability of oil rigs, the bending of light during gravitational lensing and the act of life drawing. To understand each, we must understand how we view curved surfaces. We are familiar with the language of straight-line geometry – of squares, rectangles, hexagons - but curves also have a language – of folds, cusps and swallowtails - that few of us know.
Allan will explain how the key to understanding the language of curves is René Thom’s Catastrophe Theory, and how – remarkably – the best place to learn that language is perhaps in the life drawing class. Sharing its title with Allan's new book, the talk will wander gently across mathematics, physics, engineering, biology and art, but always with a focus on curves.
Warning: this talk contains nudity.
Allan McRobie is Reader in Engineering, University of Cambridge
Please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to register
Alex Bellos is a writer and broadcaster and the author of 'Alex's Adventures in Numberland' and 'Alex Through the Looking-Glass.' He writes a maths blog and a puzzle blog for the Guardian.
More details to follow.
Please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to register
Michael Bonsall is Professor of Mathematical Biology in Oxford and an expert in population biology. More details will follow, but please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to register.
Michael Atiyah is one of the world's most renowned mathematicians and a pivotal figure in Oxford Mathematics. More details of the lecture will follow, but please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to register
Public Lectures Online
The Law of the Few - Sanjeev Goyal
The Sound of Symmetry and the Symmetry of Sound - Marcus du Sautoy
The Butterfly Effect - What Does It Really Signify - Tim Palmer
Why the truth matters - Tim Harford
The Mathematics of Visual Illusions - Ian Stewart
How can we understand our complex economy - Doyne Farmer
Fashion, Faith and Fantasy - Roger Penrose
Modelling genes: the backwards and forwards of mathematical population genetics - Alsion Etheridge
What We Cannot Know - Marcus du Sautoy
The Travelling Santa Problem and Other Seasonal Challenges - Marcus du Sautoy
Symmetry, Spaces and Undecidability - Martin Bridson
M.C. Escher: Artist, Mathematician, Man - Roger Penrose and Jon Chapman
Dancing Vortices - Étienne Ghys
The Gömböc, the Turtle and the Evolution of Shape - Professor Gábor Domokos
Birth of an Idea: A Mathematical Adventure - Professor Cédric Villani
The History of Mathematics in 300 Stamps - Professor Robin Wilson
What Maths Really Does - Professor Alain Goriely
Forbidden Crystal Symmetry - Sir Roger Penrose
Big Data's Big Deal - Professor Viktor Mayer-Schonberger
Love and Math - Professor Edward Frenkel
Why there are no three-headed monsters, resolving some problems with brain tumours, divorce prediction and how to save marriages - Professor James D Murray
The Irrational, the chaotic and incomplete: the mathematical limits of knowledge - Professor Marcus du Sautoy
The Secret Mathematicians: the connections between maths and the arts - Professor Marcus du Sautoy
Symmetry: a talk based on his second book, 'Finding Moonshine' - Professor Marcus du Sautoy
The Music of the Primes: a talk about the Riemann Hypothesis and primes - Professor Marcus du Sautoy
Interviews with Mathematicians
Nigel Hitchin reflects with Martin Bridson
https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/23405
Roger Heath-Brown in conversation with Ben Green
https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/16561
Roger Penrose interviewed by Andrew Hodges – part one
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/extra-time-professor-sir-roger-penrose-conversation-andrew-hodges-part-one
Roger Penrose interviewed by Andrew Hodges – part two
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/extra-time-professor-sir-roger-penrose-conversation-andrew-hodges-part-two
Michael Atiyah interviewed by Paul Tod
Jim Murray interviewed by Philip Maini
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/james-d-murray-reflections-life-academia-conversation-phillip-maini
Bryce McLeod Interviewed by John Ball
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/bryce-mcleod-life-mathematics-conversation-john-ball