Hundreds of kids of all ages and their families, tables full of games, rooms full of creativity and glorious patterns. Sunday in Oxford Mathematics' Andrew Wiles Building and Saturday in Templars Square, Cowley. Yes, it was the 3rd Oxford Maths Festival 2020.
The aim of the festival is to show the beautiful, creative and collaborative side of mathematics - families were able to do hands-on maths activities (provided by NRICH), make craft items to take home, and play board games together. On the first day, activities took place at Templars Square Shopping Centre in East Oxford, reaching a new audience as part of our desire to make Oxford Maths as accessible as possible. The second day took place here in the Andrew Wiles Building and included Barney Maunder-Taylor of House of Maths providing several maths shows and Andrew Jeffrey who uses magic, juggling and balloons to explore mathematical topics. But let the pictures do the talking (and the Maths).
These events fall under the banner of Outreach. But perhaps the word is inadequate. It is as important as Teaching and Research.
Anna Seigal, one of Oxford Mathematics's Hooke Fellows and a Junior Research Fellow at The Queen's College, has been awarded the 2020 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Richard C. DiPrima Prize. The prize recognises an early career researcher in applied mathematics and is based on their doctoral dissertation.
Anna's research interests lie in tensors and multilinear algebra, applied algebraic geometry and algebraic statistics, and their connections to machine learning, numerical analysis, optimization, and computational biology.
She will receive the award at the SIAM Annual Meeting in July in Toronto.
Some remarkable women shaped Oxford computing: Dorothy Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize for work on insulin; Susan Hockey pioneered digital humanities; Shirley Carter, Linda Hayes and Joan Walsh got the pioneering software company NAG off the ground in 1970; and female operators and programmers were at the heart of the early large-scale computing efforts powering 20th-century science.
To recognise these pioneers and to celebrate the Bodleian Libraries' release of interviews by Georgina Ferry of some of Oxford’s female computing pioneers, we will be holding a special event in Oxford Mathematics on 27th February 2020. There'll be a talk, a panel discussion featuring some of the pioneers themselves and even tea beforehand. Come along and hear a no longer hidden history.
4.30pm: Welcome tea
5.00pm: Professor Ursula Martin - Hidden histories: Oxford’s female computing pioneers
5.45pm: Panel discussion chaired by science writer Georgina Ferry and featuring some of the the pioneers themselves
Mathematical Institute
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter
Woodstock Road
Oxford OX2 6DD
No need to register.
Caption image: Susan Hockey defining fonts on the PDP15 at Atlas Computer Centre
Oxford Mathematics welcomes the announcement from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) of major new funding for the mathematical sciences. Professor Mike Giles, Head of Department, said "I am delighted to see UKRI's announcement of major new funding for the mathematical sciences. I think this recognises the huge impact of mathematical sciences in the whole economy, as well as in the NHS and other aspects of public life.
More than that, it also understands that the long-term health of the subject is critically underpinned by support for the whole research spectrum from fundamental curiosity-driven research through to a wide variety of applications. History has shown that any part of that spectrum can lead us in brand new and unexpected directions. The extra support will allow us to capitalise on these opportunities."
Financial, socio-economic and other life circumstances can make it difficult for some to continue studying beyond an undergraduate degree. UNIQ+ is intended to encourage access to postgraduate study from talented undergraduates from across the UK who would find continuing into postgraduate study a challenge for reasons other than their academic ability.
The programme offers paid summer research internships giving talented UK undergraduate students the opportunity to discover what postgraduate study is like at Oxford through research experience in the University’s state-of-the-art facilities, working alongside our students and staff.
The 2020 programmes will run from 6 July for seven weeks.
Applications are now open. The deadline is 12 noon on Monday 24 February 2020.
For full information, including eligibility criteria, click here.
Oxford Mathematician Nick Trefethen is the 2020 recipient of the John von Neumann Prize, the highest honour and flagship lecture of Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), in recognition of his ground-breaking contributions across many areas of numerical analysis.
SIAM awards the John von Neumann Prize annually to an individual for outstanding and distinguished contributions to the field of applied mathematics and for the effective communication of these ideas to the community. It is one of SIAM’s most distinguished prizes as well as an important lecture at the SIAM Annual Meeting. The selection committee states, “He is an outstanding expositor of applied mathematics and his books are beautifully written, widely accessible, and highly original.”
The John von Neumann Lecture was established in 1959 to honor von Neumann, a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, and computer scientist, whose seminal work helped lead to the founding of modern computing.
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 deliver this flagship lecture at the Second Joint SIAM/CAIMS Annual Meeting (AN20) in July.
Professor Nick Woodhouse, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics in Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, former Head of the Mathematical Institute and previously President of the Clay Mathematics Institute has been appointed CBE in the 2020 New Year Honours List for services to mathematics.
Nick has had a distinguished career as both a researcher and a leading administrator in the University. His research has been at the interface between mathematics and physics, initially in relativity, and later in more general connections between geometry and physical theory, notably via twistor theory. In parallel he led the Mathematical Institute in Oxford at a time of major expansion and was the leading figure in the Institute's move to the Andrew Wiles Building, completed in 2013. His time as President of the Clay Mathematics Institute saw its profile and influence increase and its roster of talented Clay Research Fellows grow.
Nick also played a leading role in the administration of the wider University including a period as Deputy Head of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division; and was a member of the North Commission set up in 1997 to review the management and structure of the collegiate University and whose recomendations helped shape Oxford as it operates in 2020.
As you might expect from a man whose family included the Surrealist artist Roland Penrose, Roger Penrose has always thought visually. That thinking is captured brilliantly in this selection of Roger’s drawings that he produced for his published works and papers.
From quasi-symmetric patterns to graphic illustrations of the paradoxical three versions of reality via twistor theory and the brain, this selection captures the stunning range of Roger’s scientific work and the visual thinking that inspires and describes it.
Oxford Mathematics London Public Lecture: Timothy Gowers - Productive generalization: one reason we will never run out of interesting mathematical questions
In our Oxford Mathematics London Public Lecture held at the Science Museum, Fields Medallist Tim Gowers uses the principle of generalization to show how mathematics progresses in its relentless pursuit of problems.
After the lecture in a fascinating Q&A with Hannah Fry, Tim discusses how he approaches problems, both mathematical and personal.
Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Our latest online student lecture is the first in the Quantum Theory course for Second Year Students. Fernando Alday reflects on the breakdown of the deterministic world and describes some of the experiments that defined the new Quantum Reality.
This is the sixth lecture in our series of Oxford Mathematics Student Lectures. The lectures aim to throw a light on the student experience and how we teach. All lectures are followed by tutorials where pairs of students spend an hour with their tutor to go through the lectures and accompanying work sheets.
An overview of the course and the relevant materials are available here:
