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Mathematics is the pursuit of truth. But it is a pursuit carried out by human beings with human emotions. Join Vicky Neale as she travels the mathematical rollercoaster.

Oxford Mathematics is delighted to announce that in partnership with Northumbria University we shall be hosting our first Newcastle Public Lecture on 13 November. Everybody is welcome as we demonstrate the range, beauty and challenges of mathematics. Vicky Neale, Whitehead Lecturer here in Oxford, will be our speaker. Vicky has given a range of Public Lectures in Oxford and beyond and has made numerous radio and television appearances.

Wednesday 13 November
5.00pm-6.00pm
Northumbria University
Lecture Theatre 002, Business & Law Building, City Campus East
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 2SU

Please email @email to register

Watch live:
https://facebook.com/OxfordMathematics
https://livestream.com/oxuni/neale

Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

So you have just bought a footbal club and the fans are on your back and you desparately need success. What do you do?

Well you need a good manager for sure and that manager will no doubt ask you to pay top dollar to get the best players. But the manager will almost certainly ask you to employ a team of sports scientists including...wait for it...a mathematician.

Surely not? Well if not a profesisonal mathematician, certainly a student of the subject. Because football is about space, angles, data. Mathematics is about space, angles, data...

David Sumpter's Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture 'Soccermatics: could a Premier League team be one day managed by a mathematician', makes the connection explicit, as well as revealing which teams and players already ahead of the game, both as footballers and mathematicians.

Oxford Mathematics is delighted to announce that Professor Sam Cohen has been chosen as one of seven Public Engagement with Research Leaders in the University of Oxford.

Mathematical research is an integral part of all our lives, though many people are blissfully unaware of the connection. Sam's role will be to encourage colleagues to explain that connection and to find smart and entertaining ways for them to do it, building on our mix of Public Lectures, Research Case-studies and social media.

Sam's own research is in stochastic analysis and mathematical finance. Beyond mathematics, he has interests in philosophy and Christian theology. Watch this space.

Oxford Mathematician Sarah Waters has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. Sarah's research is in physiological fluid mechanics, tissue biomechanics and the application of mathematics to problems in medicine and biology. In the words of the citation Sarah was elected "for exposing the intricate fluid mechanics of biomedical systems and impactfully analyzing them with elegant mathematics.” 

20 September sees the Climate Protest come to Oxford. Whatever your view of the tactics the fact is that the University itself produces regular research on the impact of meat consumption on climate and health and is launching a wide campaign on sustainability over the next few weeks (#TruePlanet).

Consequently we feel that the Oxford Mathematics Cafe π should do something to both recognise this and align ourselves better with our research. We would add that the meat-free dishes are by far the most popular in the cafe. 'Flexitarians' are on the march.

SO:

On 20th September the hot dishes in the cafe will all be veggie or vegan with all salads vegetarian or vegan. There will be no red meat served at all including in sandwiches.

In addition from the following week, two of the three hot dishes will be veggie or vegan. And best of all if you hate salad and pulses, we plan 100% veggie/vegan days in the Autumn. 

So if you are in town please come along. The Cafe is OPEN TO ALL all year round. And you will get a chance on Friday to give your views as we shall be using the white screens in the cafe as whiteboards to encourage comments (supporting or dissenting). 

Oxford Mathematican Nick Trefethen has been elected to the Academia Europaea. Nick is Professor of Numerical Analysis in Oxford, a Fellow of Balliol College and Head of Oxford Mathematics's Numerical Analysis Group. He has published around 140 journal papers spanning a wide range of areas within numerical analysis and applied mathematics, including non-normal eigenvalue problems and applications, spectral methods for differential equations, numerical linear algebra, fluid mechanics, computational complex analysis, and approximation theory.

Nick will be an invited speaker at the 8th European Congress of Mathematics in Slovenia in 2020.

2019 sees the 5th PROMYS Europe summer school.  The programme brings together enthusiastic and ambitious teenage mathematicians from across Europe, who gather in the Oxford Mathematical Institute for six weeks of intensive mathematics.  Participants, who stay at Wadham College, work on activities designed to give them the opportunity to explore mathematical ideas independently.  This year they are concentrating on number theory and combinatorics, and in addition are working on group projects drawing on ideas from a range of mathematical topics.  The programme is a partnership of the Oxford Mathematical Institute, Wadham College, the Clay Mathematics Institute, and PROMYS in Boston, which celebrated its 30th birthday this year.

PROMYS Europe, like its parent programme PROMYS in the USA, has a distinctive teaching philosophy and structure.  Students receive a daily set of problems, and have a daily number theory lecture, but the lectures aim to be at least three days behind the problems sets.  Students are invited to experiment, to gather numerical data, to explore ideas, to formulate conjectures and to try to find their own proofs, all before the ideas are formalised in lectures.  This gives students a very different experience of mathematics from anything they have encountered previously, and they are able to see how deeply it is possible to understand an area of maths because they have put the ideas together themselves. 

Students apply for the programme by submitting their work on our challenging application problems.  Students need to display perseverance and creativity in testing their ideas and finding routes to a solution.  To join the email list to be notified when applications for students and counsellors open next year, please see the PROMYS Europe website.

Halfway through the programme, the 2019 students and undergraduate counsellors gathered with faculty, former students and counsellors, and friends of the programme, to celebrate the 5th birthday of PROMYS Europe and the many achievements of the students and counsellors.  Many former students and counsellors of PROMYS Europe have gone on to study maths degrees at leading universities, and the oldest are in some cases now embarking on PhD research degrees.

This year, the 36 students and counsellors come from Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and Ukraine.  The counsellors are all Mathematics undergraduates, including three who are current Oxford undergraduates (having previously themselves been students at PROMYS Europe), and a fourth who is moving to Oxford in October to start the Oxford Masters in Mathematical Sciences (OMMS) MSc.

PROMYS Europe is dedicated to the principle that no one should be unable to attend for financial reasons, and full or partial financial assistance is available for those who would otherwise be unable to attend.  PROMYS Europe is made possible thanks to funding and other resources provided by the partnership, as well as further financial support from alumni of the University of Oxford and Wadham College, and from the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research.

Oxford Mathematics is part of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division (MPLS) here in Oxford and every year the division gives teaching and equality and diversity awards in recognition of the fact that teaching and the learning environment are at the very core of what we are about and from where all future success will derive.

This year Oxford Mathematicians were successful in various ways. In the teaching category Mareli Grady (who splits her time with the Department of Statistics) won for raising awareness of mathematics and engagement with the public through the Oxford Maths Festival; while Ian Griffiths, Sam Cohen and Frances Kirwan were recognised for their work on Fridays@4, an initiative which since 2015-16 has enhanced graduate students' study skills and their long-term educational development, and helped integrate students within the department.

Under the equality and diversity heading the Outstanding Contribution by a Staff Member – Student Choice Award is made to an individual (academic, researcher or administrator), nominated by a student or group of students, who has made an important contribution to advancing equality and diversity. Dominic Vella from Oxford Mathematics was nominated for creating and fostering a diverse and inclusive research group, with people from many different countries, socio-economic and educational backgrounds, and varying ethnic, gender and age profile.

The Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine has announced the winners of the Martin Black Prize for 2019, which is awarded for the best paper published in Physiological Measurement.

The winner was 'Big data in Parkinson’s disease: using smartphones to remotely detect longitudinal disease phenotypes’ by Oxford Mathematician Siddharth Arora and John Prince and Maarten de Vos from Oxford's Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Engineering Science respectively.

The paper's objective was to better understand the longitudinal characteristics of Parkinson’s disease through the analysis of finger tapping and memory tests collected remotely using smartphones. More on Siddharth's work can be found here.

Three Oxford Mathematicians have been awarded 2019 London Mathematical Society (LMS) Prizes.

Andrew Wiles has been awarded a De Morgan Medal for his seminal contributions to number theory and for his resolution of ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’ in particular, as well as for his numerous activities promoting mathematics in general.

Ben Green has been awarded a Senior Whitehead Prize for his groundbreaking results in additive combinatorics, analytic number theory and group theory.

David Conlon has been awarded a Whitehead Prize in recognition of his many contributions to combinatorics. His particular expertise is Ramsey Theory, where he has made fundamental contributions to both the arithmetic and graph-theoretic sides of the subject.