Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures enable anyone with an interest in the subject to see the best mathematicians in action and to share their pleasure (and occasional pain). They are aimed at the General Public, schools and anyone who just wants to come along and hear a bit more about what maths is really about. For booking please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk.
If you can't be here in person you can always view online. All our lectures are now broadcast live on our Twitter and Facebook pages and our live streaming service (check each lecture for the livestream address) and most are also subsequently available via our YouTube page.
The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Jump down to Public Lectures and interviews online.
You can view and download posters from previous events.
Further Information:
Humans have been processing information in the world for a long time, finding patterns and learning from our surroundings to solve problems. Today, scientists make sense of complex problems by gathering vast amounts of data, and analysing them with quantitative methods. These methods are important tools to understand the issues facing us: the spread of disease, climate change, or even political movements. But this quantitative toolbox can seem far removed from our individual approaches for processing information in our day-to-day lives. This disconnect and inaccessibility leads to the scientific tools becoming entangled in politics and questions of trust.
In this talk, Anna will describe how some of the ideas at the heart of science’s quantitative tools are familiar to us all. We’ll see how mathematics enables us to turn the ideas into tools. As a society, if we can better connect with the ideas driving this toolbox, we can see when to use (and not to use) the available tools, what’s missing from the toolbox, and how we might come up with new ideas to drive our future understanding of the world around us.
Anna Seigal is a Hooke Research Fellow in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford and a Junior Research Fellow at The Queen's College.
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The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Public Lectures Online
How to Make the World Add Up - Tim Harford
Can maths tell us how to win at Fantasy Football? - Joshua Bull
Squirrels, Turing and Excitability - Mathematical Modelling in Biology, Ecology and Medicine - Philip Maini
Smartphones v COVID-19 - Renaud Lambiotte
How do Mathematicians Model Infectious Disease Outbreaks - Robin Thompson
Cheerios, iPhones and Dysons - Ian Griffiths
Artistic Mathematics: truth and beauty - Henry Segerman
Why Does Rudolph Have a Shiny Nose? - Chris Budd
Spin Networks: the quamtum structure of spacetime from Penrose's intuiition to Loop Quamtum Gravity - Carlo Rovelli
Oxford Mathematics Newcastle Public Lecture: 😊🤔😔😁😕😮😍 in Maths? - Vicky Neale
Oxford Mathematics London Public Lecture: Productive generalization: one reason we will never run out of interesting mathematical questions - Timothy Gowers
Waves and resonance: from musical instruments to vacuum cleaners, via metamaterials and invisibility cloaks - Jon Chapman
Soccermatics: could a Premier League team one day be managed by a mathematician? - David Sumpter
Walking on water: from biolocomotion to quantum foundations - John Bush
The Creativity Code: How AI is learning to write, paint and think - Marcus du Sautoy
The Universe Speaks in Numbers - Graham Farmelo
Knotty Problems - Marc Lackenby
The Num8er My5teries - Marcus du Sautoy
Chasing the dragon: tidal bores in the UK and elsewhere - Michael Berry
To a physicist I am a mathematician; to a mathematician, a physicst - Roger Penrose and Hannah Fry
Bach and the Cosmos - James Sparks and City of London SInfonia
Eschermatics - Roger Penrose
Atomistically inspired origami - Richard James
Numbers are Serious but they are also Fun - Michael Atiyah
Can Mathematics Understand the Brain? - Alain Goriely
Euler’s pioneering equation: ‘the most beautiful theorem in mathematics’ - Robin Wilson
Scaling the Maths of Life - Michael Bonsall
Can Yule solve my problems - Alex Bellos
Andrew Wiles London Public Lecture
The Seduction of Curves: The Lines of Beauty that Connect Mathematics, Art and the Nude - Allan McRobie
Maths v Disease - Julia Gog
Closing the Gap: the quest to understand prime numbers - Vicky Neale
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 - Alison 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
Interviews with Mathematicians
John Ball on the journey of an applied mathematician - interview with Alain Goriely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4leaH7lEAmw
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