Oxford Mathematician Robin Wilson has been awarded the 2017 Stanton Medal. The medal is awarded every two years by the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) for outreach activities in combinatorial mathematics.
In the words of the ICA citation, "Robin Wilson has, for fifty years, been an outstanding ambassador for graph theory to the general public. He has lectured widely (giving some 1500 public lectures), and extended the reach of his lectures through television, radio, and videotape. He has also published extensively on combinatorial ideas, written in a style that is engaging and accessible. He has provided direction, encouragement, and support to colleagues and students at all levels. His superb talents at conveying the beauty of graph-theoretic ideas, and inviting his readers and listeners to join in, have enthused many students, teachers, and researchers. Professor Wilson’s advocacy and outreach for combinatorics continue to yield many positive impacts that are enjoyed by researchers and non-specialists alike."
Robin Wilson is an Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University, Emeritus Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, and a former Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. He is the author of many books including 'Combinatorics: A Very Short Introduction', 'Four Colours Suffice: How the Map Problem Was Solved,' 'Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical Logical Life' and his textbook ‘Introduction to Graph Theory.’ His latest Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture on Euler's pioneering equation can be watched here.
We have two contrasting Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures coming up in the next ten days. One features a genius from the eighteenth century whose work is still pertinent today. The other is very much from the 21st century and illuminates the direction mathematics is currently travelling. Please email @email to register or follow our twitter account for details on how to watch live.
Euler’s pioneering equation: ‘the most beautiful theorem in mathematics’ - Robin Wilson. 28 February, 2018, 5-6pm
Can Mathematics Understand the Brain? - Alain Goriely, March 8th, 5.15-6.15pm
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Euler’s pioneering equation: ‘the most beautiful theorem in mathematics’ - Robin Wilson
Euler’s equation, the ‘most beautiful equation in mathematics’, startlingly connects the five most important constants in the subject: 1, 0, π, e and i. Central to both mathematics and physics, it has also featured in a criminal court case and on a postage stamp, and has appeared twice in The Simpsons. So what is this equation – and why is it pioneering?
Robin Wilson is an Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University, Emeritus Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, and a former Fellow of Keble College, Oxford.
28 February 2018, 5pm-6pm, Mathematical Institute, Oxford. Please email @email to register
Can Mathematics Understand the Brain? - Alain Goriely
The human brain is the object of the ultimate intellectual egocentrism. It is also a source of endless scientific problems and an organ of such complexity that it is not clear that a mathematical approach is even possible, despite many attempts.
In this talk Alain will use the brain to showcase how applied mathematics thrives on such challenges. Through mathematical modelling, we will see how we can gain insight into how the brain acquires its convoluted shape and what happens during trauma. We will also consider the dramatic but fascinating progression of neuro-degenerative diseases, and, eventually, hope to learn a bit about who we are before it is too late.
Alain Goriely is Professor of Mathematical Modelling, University of Oxford and author of 'Applied Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction.'
8 March, 5.15 pm-6.15pm, Mathematical Institute, Oxford. Please email @email to register
Prof. Ursula Martin and Dr Ian Griffiths have each been awarded an MPLS Impact Award for 2017-18. The MPLS (Mathematical, Physical, Engineering and Life Sciences Division at the University of Oxford) Impact Awards scheme aims to foster and raise awareness of impact by rewarding it at a local level.
Ursula's award is for Public Engagement in connection with the 2015 celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Ada Lovelace's birth. This included exhibits at many museums (including the National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park, the Science Museum and the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley) as well as an issue of a children's computing magazine developed in collaboration with QMUL (Queen Mary University of London) and distributed to UK schools to encourage programming.
Ian's award is for Non-Commercial Impact, and is in recognition of his work with researchers at IIT Kharagpur on the modelling and improvement of filters to remove arsenic from water supplies in India. This work is funded by GCRF (the UK Global Challenge Research Fund) and also supported by UNICEF which is now installing community-scale filters in India. Although it falls outside the definition of the category, Ian is also working with three companies (Dyson, Gore and Pall Corporation) to improve their filters for various purposes.
These awards, which include a £1000 payment, will be presented at the MPLS Winter Reception on February 6th.
There have been reports in the press this week of how the examination length for students taking examinations in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford was extended in summer 2017.
We would like to emphasise that the extension was applied to all students taking those examinations and was for academic reasons. This is part of an ongoing review of our examination processes.
We are delighted to announce that Rama Cont has been appointed to the Professorship of Mathematical Finance in the Mathematical Institute here in Oxford. Currently Professor of Mathematics and Chair in Mathematical Finance at Imperial College London, Rama Cont held teaching and research positions at Ecole Polytechnique (France), Columbia University (New York) and Université Pierre & Marie Curie (Paris VI). His research focuses on stochastic analysis, stochastic processes and mathematical modeling in finance, in particular the modeling of extreme market risks.
Professor Cont will take up the post with effect from 1 July 2018.
Global information analytics business Elsevier is donating £1 million to Oxford Mathematics, in support of fellowships, research meetings and workshops.
Oxford Mathematics is widely recognised as one of the foremost centres for the subject globally; its strength and reputation has never been greater. Now, thanks to Elsevier’s generosity, five outstanding early career researchers will be supported by internationally competitive three-year fellowships. Fellows will hold the prestigious title of Hooke or Titchmarsh Fellow; Hooke and Titchmarsh are distinguished figures in the diverse history of Oxford and global mathematics.
During their time at Oxford, fellows will undertake research, develop their experience of teaching in a university environment, and work alongside academics at the forefront of the most profound advances in mathematics. By the end of their fellowships, post-holders will be independent researchers of international standing.
‘We are extremely grateful to Elsevier for this important support for Oxford Mathematics,’ says Professor Martin Bridson, Head of the Mathematical Institute. ‘Postdoctoral fellowships provide vital opportunities to researchers embarking on academic careers. Thanks to this new collaboration, five outstanding early career mathematicians will be supported as they join the institute and pursue some of the most exciting questions in mathematics.’
Finding funding in the current higher education landscape can be extremely challenging for early career researchers. Without support, many individuals struggle to establish an academic career following the end of their doctoral studies. The Mathematical Institute’s Hooke and Titchmarsh Fellowship programme, expanded by virtue of this gift, addresses this need.
Elsevier’s donation will also support a series of high-profile research meetings and workshops at the Mathematical Institute. Spread over the course of five years, the meetings will bring researchers from other UK and international institutions to Oxford in order to engage on topics ranging from data science to fundamental problems in geometry and number theory.
Professor Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford says: ‘I am delighted that Elsevier has chosen to work with the University’s Mathematical Institute to support our outstanding early career researchers. This initiative will not only benefit researchers here in Oxford but also the international mathematical research community. We are deeply grateful to Elsevier for their generosity.’
Ron Mobed, Elsevier Chief Executive Officer says: ‘The University of Oxford’s commitment to excellence in research, development of young and emerging talent and creating new ways of academic collaboration are very much aligned with Elsevier’s mission. It represents the future of how science should be applied to have a transformative impact on society. Research in mathematics specifically is vital to the exploration of new technologies, innovation, data science and analytics – areas in which we are investing ourselves to make research information more useful.’
The Abel Prize is the most prestigious prize in Mathematics. Each year, in anticipation of the prize announcement, an afternnon of lectues showcases previous winners and member of the Committee. This year the event will be held in Oxford on Monday 15th January. Andrew Wiles, John Rognes and Irene Fonseca will be the speakers. Full details below. Everyone welcome. No need to register.
Timetable:
1.00pm: Introductory Remarks by Camilla Serck-Hanssen, the Vice President of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
1.10pm - 2.10pm: Andrew Wiles
2.10pm - 2.30pm: Break
2.30pm - 3.30pm: Irene Fonseca
3.30pm - 4.00pm: Tea and Coffee
4.00pm - 5.00pm: John Rognes
Abstracts:
Andrew Wiles: Points on elliptic curves, problems and progress
This will be a survey of the problems concerned with counting points on elliptic curves.
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Irene Fonseca: Mathematical Analysis of Novel Advanced Materials
Quantum dots are man-made nanocrystals of semiconducting materials. Their formation and assembly patterns play a central role in nanotechnology, and in particular in the optoelectronic properties of semiconductors. Changing the dots' size and shape gives rise to many applications that permeate our daily lives, such as the new Samsung QLED TV monitor that uses quantum dots to turn "light into perfect color"!
Quantum dots are obtained via the deposition of a crystalline overlayer (epitaxial film) on a crystalline substrate. When the thickness of the film reaches a critical value, the profile of the film becomes corrugated and islands (quantum dots) form. As the creation of quantum dots evolves with time, materials defects appear. Their modeling is of great interest in materials science since material properties, including rigidity and conductivity, can be strongly influenced by the presence of defects such as dislocations.
In this talk we will use methods from the calculus of variations and partial differential equations to model and mathematically analyze the onset of quantum dots, the regularity and evolution of their shapes, and the nucleation and motion of dislocations.
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John Rognes: Symmetries of Manifolds
To describe the possible rotations of a ball of ice, three real numbers suffice. If the ice melts, infinitely many numbers are needed to describe the possible motions of the resulting ball of water. We discuss the shape of the resulting spaces of continuous, piecewise-linear or differentiable symmetries of spheres, balls and higher-dimensional manifolds. In the high-dimensional cases the answer turns out to involve surgery theory and algebraic K-theory.
Oxford Mathematician Sir John Ball FRS has been awarded the King Faisal Prize for Science. Launched by the King Faisal Foundation (KFF) and granted for the first time in 1979, the King Faisal Prize recognises the outstanding works of individuals and institutions in five major categories: Service to Islam, Islamic Studies, Arabic Language and Literature, Medicine, and Science. Its aim is to benefit Muslims in their present and future, inspire them to participate in all aspects of civilisation, as well as enrich human knowledge and develop mankind.
Sir John Ball is Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Director of the Oxford Centre for Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations and Fellow of the Queen's College. John's main research areas lie in the calculus of variations, nonlinear partial differential equations, infinite-dimensional dynamical systems and their applications to nonlinear mechanics.
Oxford Mathematician Sarah Waters has been awarded a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship commencing this month. Sarah is an applied mathematician here in Oxford. Her interest is in physiological fluid mechanics, tissue biomechanics and the application of mathematics to problems in medicine and biology. Her work varies from classical applied mathematics problems motivated by physiological applications to highly interdisciplinary work - she collaborates with life scientists, clinicians, bioengineers, theoreticians and experimentalists to develop and solve models that are novel, realistic and provide insights into biomedical problems. The resulting models often lead to theoretical predictions that can be exploited in the laboratory.
Modern science and technology generate data at an unprecedented rate. A major challenge is that this data is often complex, high dimensional and may include temporal and/or spatial information. The 'shape' of the data can be important but it is difficult to extract and quantify it using standard machine learning or statistical techniques. For example, an image of blood vessels near a tumour looks very different to an image of healthy blood vessels; statistics alone cannot quantify this difference. New shape analysis methods are required.
Thanks to funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), a newly created centre combining scientists in Oxford, Swansea and Liverpool will study the shape of data through the development of new mathematics and algorithms, and build on existing data science techniques in order to obtain and interpret the shape of data. A theoretical field of mathematics that enables the study of shapes is geometry and topology. The ability to quantify the shape of complicated objects is only possible with advanced mathematics and algorithms. The field known as topological data analysis (TDA), enables one to use methods of topology and geometry to study the shape of data. In particular, a method within TDA known as persistent homology provides a summary of the shape of the data (e.g. features such as holes) at multiple scales. A key success of persistent homology is the ability to provide robust results, even if the data are noisy. There are theoretical and computational challenges in the application of these algorithms to large scale, real-world data.
The aim of this centre is to build on current persistent homology tools, extending them theoretically, computationally, and adapting them for practical applications. The Oxford team led by Heather Harrington and Ulrike Tillmann together with Helen Byrne, Peter Grindrod and Gesine Reinert is composed of experts in pure and applied mathematics, computer scientists, and statisticians whose combined expertise covers cutting edge pure mathematics, mathematical modelling, algorithm design and data analysis. This core team will in turn work closely with collaborators in a range of scientific and industrial domains.
