Latest news

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.

Mezzanine Level
Mathematical Institute
Oxford

10 December 2019- 31 March 2020

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:

We continue with our series of Student Lectures with this first lecture in the 2nd year Course on Differential Equations. Professor Philip Maini begins with a recap of the previous year's work before moving on to give examples of ordinary differential equations which exhibit either unique, non-unique, or no solutions. This leads us to Picard's Existence and Uniqueness Theorem...

This latest student lecture is the fifth in our series shining a light on the student experience in Oxford Mathematics. We look forward to your feedback. The full course overview and materials can be found here:

https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/44002

Oxford Mathematician James Maynard has been awarded the 2020 Cole Prize in Number Theory by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) "for his many contributions to prime number theory."

James is one of the leading lights in world mathematics, having made dramatic advances in analytic number theory in the years immediately following his 2013 doctorate. These advances have brought him worldwide attention in mathematics and beyond and many prizes including the European Mathematical Society Prize, the Ramanujan Prize and the Whitehead Prize. In 2017 he was appointed Research Professor in Oxford.

James paid tribute to the many people whose work laid the foundations for his own discoveries and the people who have guided him in his career, from his parents to school teachers and university supervisors. He added: "the field of analytic number theory feels revitalised and exciting at the moment with new ideas coming from many different people, and hopefully this prize might inspire younger mathematicians to continue this momentum and make new discoveries about the primes."

The Cole Prize in Number Theory recognizes a notable research work in number theory that has appeared in the last six years. The work must be published in a recognized, peer-reviewed journal.

Oxford Mathematician Ehud Hrushovski has been awarded the 2019 Heinz Hopf Prize for his outstanding contributions to model theory and their application to algebra and geometry.

The Heinz Hopf Prize at ETH Zurich honours outstanding scientific achievements in the field of pure mathematics. The prize is awarded every two years with the recipient giving the Heinz Hopf Lecture. This year Ehud spoke on 'Logic and geometry: the model theory of finite fields and difference fields.'

An Art Exhibition and a Light & Music Concert

Katharine Beaugié - Light Sculpture
Medea Bindewald - Harpsichord
Curated by Balázs Szendrői

Concert: 18 November, 6.45pm followed by a reception
Exhibition: 18th November – 6th December 2019, Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm

Applied Pure is a unique collaboration between light sculptor Katharine Beaugié and international concert harpsichordist Medea Bindewald, combining the patterns made by water and light with the sound of harpsichord music in a mathematical environment.

Katharine Beaugié will also be exhibiting a new series of large-scale photograms (photographic shadows), displaying the patterns of the natural phenomena of human relationship with water and light.

The Programme of music for harpsichord and water includes the composers: Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667), Enno Kastens (b 1967) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

For more information about the concert and exhibition which is FREE please click this link

Image of Drop | God 2018

Oxford Mathematician Martin Bridson together with co-author André Haefliger has won the 2020 Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition awarded by the American Mathematical Society for the book 'Metric Spaces of Non-positive Curvature', published by Springer-Verlag in 1999. 

In the words of the citation "Metric Spaces of Non-positive Curvature is the authoritative reference for a huge swath of modern geometric group theory. It realizes Mikhail Gromov's vision of group theory studied via geometry, has been the fundamental textbook for many graduate students learning the subject, and has paved the way for the developments of the subsequent decades."

Professor Martin Bridson is Whitehead Professor of Pure Mathematics in Oxford, A Fellow of Magdalen College and President of the Clay Mathematics Institute. His research interests lie in geometric group theory, low-dimensional topology, and spaces of non-positive curvature. Born on the Isle of Man, In 2016 Martin became only the second Manxman to ever be elected to the Royal Society, after Edward Forbes.

As part of our 'going behind the scenes' at Oxford Mathematics, we offer the fourth in our series of real student lectures. In our latest lecture we give you a taste of the Oxford Mathematics Student experience as it begins in its very first week.

This is the first lecture in the Introductory Calculus course. Dan Ciubotaru summarises how the course works and what we expect the new students to already know in order to ensure all of them are prepared for the more complex work ahead. We will be filming two more lectures for second year students very shortly. 

An overview of the course and the course materials are here:
https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/43879