News

The Mathematical Institute has been given Supporter Status under the LMS/HoDoMs Good Practice Award Scheme.

Xunyu Zhou will give a speech at the inaugural Oxford China Business Forum on 9th September 2010 at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing. The
forum will be chaired by the Chancellor of Oxford, The Rt Hon the Lord Patten of Barnes.

See http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/newsandevents/conferences/forum/Pages/default.a… for details.

In "The Numb8r My5teries", Marcus du Sautoy reveals the beauty of mathematics through five playful mathematical puzzles. The subjects range from how to better your chances at Rock, Paper, Scissors all the way through to the shape of the universe.

Set in an easy to read style with copious illustrations, some done by Thomas Woolley (Dphil Student in the Centre for Mathematical Biology), this book will show you that maths is at the heart of everything we do.

These courses are designed to be undertaken by those in full-time employment - usually in the financial sector.

The full MSc is designed to take just over two years, starting in January each year. Students travel to Oxford for individual 'modules'.

Short courses of 4 days are also available.

Specific information on the course is available.

Warm congratulations to Bill Morton, who has won the 2010 De Morgan Medal.

The De Morgan Medal is the most prestigious prize of the London Mathematical Society (LMS)

Professor Morton’s work concerns understanding the flow of liquids and his results have influenced a wide range of fields, from weather forecasting to the design of power stations and from the development of aircraft engines to the growth of scientific computing.

LMS president Professor Angus MacIntyre FRS, said, “A hallmark of Professor Morton's work is the creation of original, elegant mathematics in the service of real-world applications. The London Mathematical Society is proud to honour a mathematician who has changed the way we look at the numerical analysis of partial differential equations through his world-leading research results, his vision and his dynamic leadership qualities.”

The Royal Society has awarded the 2010 Sylvester Medal to Dr Graeme Segal FRS for his highly influential and elegant work on the development of topology, geometry and quantum field theory, bridging the gap between physics and pure mathematics.

Below is a copy of the university news item on the planning permission granted for Radcliffe Observatory Quarter

Planning permission has been granted by Oxford City Council for two of the most significant buildings on Oxford University’s Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ) – one of the biggest development projects the University has undertaken for more than a century.

The new buildings – a Mathematical Institute building, designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, and a Humanities Building and Library, designed by Bennetts Associates – will provide cutting-edge research and teaching facilities and, in both subject areas, bring together in one place a number of centres and faculties that are currently scattered around the city.

The ROQ is a 10-acre site in central Oxford, bound by the Woodstock Road, Somerville College, Walton Street, Observatory Street, and Green Templeton College, and will accommodate new teaching and learning space for the University over the next 20 years.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning and Resources) and Chair of the ROQ Board, Professor Anthony Monaco, said: 'The University is delighted that planning permission has been granted for these two new buildings.

'These projects form the core of our vision for this site, offering state-of-the-art facilities for research and teaching that will greatly benefit faculty and students. The fantastic designs by both architects provide new avenues through the site, exciting gardens and squares, all with views of the Radcliffe Observatory.'

Rafael Viñoly Architects’ new Mathematical Institute building will be the main workplace for more than 500 academics and support staff, as well as the centre for the academic life of approximately 1,000 undergraduates and a diverse community of college research fellows and lecturers.

The scheme provides the opportunity to accommodate the growing population of the Mathematical Institute – who currently work in three separate locations – in a modern, high performance building that respects and enhances the setting of the adjoining historic buildings.

Rafael Viñoly said: 'We are delighted to receive planning approval on our proposals for the Mathematical Institute building. Our proposals result from the resolute commitment of Oxford University, Oxford City Council officers, English Heritage representatives and regional design review panels, who were all intensively involved from the start of the design process. Our joint efforts have paid-off and generated an architectural solution that engages and complements this complex historical site. Working with the Mathematical Institute, chaired by Nick Woodhouse, has been a most inspiring experience – we look forward to delivering their new academic research and teaching facilities.'

Professor Alex Halliday, Head of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division at Oxford, said: 'We have the UK's top-ranked mathematics department. We have attracted to Oxford some outstanding mathematicians, a growing body of students, among the highest research grant income in the world for this subject and a glittering array of awards. This splendid building will now allow us to take advantage of this success and provide the working environment for this subject to flourish. It is a fantastic opportunity for the University, the city and the UK.’

Landon and Lavinia Clay are major benefactors to the Mathematical Institute and support from other donors is being sought for the new building. Lavinia Clay said: ‘We are delighted to be supporting the new Institute building and are very pleased that planning permission has been secured. The Mathematical Institute building will provide an inspiring working environment for students and faculty alike and will help to underline the importance and relevance of mathematics to future generations.’

The new Humanities Building and Library, designed by Bennetts Associates, will form the centrepiece of the ROQ development. The first phase brings together four faculties – English, History, Theology and Philosophy – and will provide state of the art library and teaching facilities as well as research, administrative space and academic offices.

Rab Bennetts, Director of Bennetts Associates, said: ‘Our intention has been to create a group of complementary buildings that echo the grain and texture of Oxford. The backdrop of faculty buildings provides the setting for two new ‘quads’, with the library lantern as the counterpoint to the Grade 1 listed Radcliffe Observatory. We are delighted to receive planning consent and look forward to receiving the go ahead for construction.’

Head of Humanities, Professor Sally Shuttleworth, said: ‘The Humanities Division is excited by this development which will bring together on an integrated site, small libraries, academic faculties and research projects that are currently scattered about the city. We hope that it will make a considerable contribution to the life of the city and plan to offer many lectures, performances and events which will be open to the general public.’

Other developments on the ROQ site have already been granted planning permission. This includes the refurbishment of the Grade II* 18th century Radcliffe Infirmary building and St Luke's Chapel; the remodelling and refurbishment of the Grade II former Outpatients' building; three new buildings at Somerville College, along the wall that the College shares with the ROQ site; and a new east/west link for pedestrians and cyclists, connecting Walton Street with Woodstock Road and available for the public to use. 

Congratulations to Philip Candelas on his FRS.

Further information is available on the Royal Society pages.

Observations of circular human sperm swimming and trapping in a very viscous fluid.

Mathematical modelling predictions for circular sperm swimming and trapping in a very viscous fluid.

Ever wondered how sperm know where they're going? Every one of us is the consequence of a sperm cell winning the epic race through the female tract to reach the egg, covering the equivalent distance of climbing Mount Everest. A ‘virtual sperm’ can be developed and explored, based on computational simulations of a biologically inspired mathematical model. In particular, such models highlight that changes in the surrounding fluids may cause sperm to switch from straight-swimming to going round in circles, effectively trapping them, due to a buckling-effect on the whip-like motions of the sperm tail. Characteristic features of this mechanics have also been observed in the laboratory, while understanding these mechanisms and more generally how sperm may become trapped is potentially important in developing future simple treatments and diagnoses for human subfertility and animal conservation. These results featured as a ScienceShot in Science-Now, the popular arm of the prestigious journal Science, after a recent publication in The Journal of The Royal Society Interface. The latter was authored by Hermes Gadelha and Eamonn Gaffney of The Mathematical Institute with collaborators from the Centre for Human Reproductive Science, Birmingham Women’s NHS Foundation Trust.

The university has produced a press release on Mason's Porter's work on network communities. Below is a copy of the press release:

A new way of finding community structure within networks – anything from social networks such as Facebook, to power grids, political voting networks, and protein interaction networks in biology – could help us understand how people are connected and how connections change over time. The new technique, developed by a team from the University of North Carolina, University of Oxford, and Harvard University, aims to be more realistic than conventional approaches, which only capture one type of connection or a network at only one moment in time.

The new approach captures the totality of connections within a network and could be used to examine the different ways communities form; for example, analysing relationships between University students and staff across many different connections such as Facebook friendship, College affiliation, and subject studied. Alternatively, it could be used to track how one type of connection – such as Facebook friendship – changes over time.

The technique is not limited to social networks as community detection has the potential to find important groups in many other applications, such as protein-protein interaction networks, transportation networks, and political voting networks.

A report of the team’s work, advancing the theory of community detection, will be published in this week’s Science.

‘Capturing the complexity of people's relationships through networks such as Facebook and how these relationships change over time is a huge challenge,’ said Dr Mason Porter of Oxford University's Mathematical Institute, an author of the report. ‘Our new approach, which can be applied to any type of network, is potentially much better than existing methods at identifying what makes a 'community' within a network and at tracking how such groupings evolve over time.’

Until now, it was only possible to detect communities using computer algorithms in very special cases – in particular, only in networks that are treated as if they don't change over time and as if they have only one type of connection.

The new computational method can be used with what researchers call ‘multislice’ networks, in which each ‘slice’ might represent a social network at one snapshot in time or a different set of connections between the same set of individuals. These ‘slices’ are combined into a larger mathematical object, which can contain a potentially huge amount of data and is difficult to analyse. Previous community-finding methods could only deal with each slice separately, and it was necessary to compare the results obtained from different slices using ad hoc tools (if it was possible at all) and the new method overcomes this key challenge.

‘It's very easy to use ‘ad hoc’ methods and miss something that is potentially interesting or important in such complex networks,’ said Dr Porter. ‘Whilst our new approach doesn't dictate what you will find, it does potentially give you a much better chance of finding interesting connections if they're there.’

• A report of the research, entitled ‘Community Structure in Time-Dependent, Multiscale, and Multiplex Networks’, is published in Science on 14 May, embargoed until 19:00 BST/14:00 EST (US) 13 May 2010.