Latest news

Endre Süli was elected Foreign Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts at the General Assembly of the Academy, which was held in Belgrade on 5th November.

The Academy, founded as the Serbian Royal Academy in 1886, is the Serbian national academy. It is the highest academic institution in the country, whose members are elected triennially.

This year's list of new Foreign Members also includes the President of the Czech Republic, the economist, Vaclav Klaus; the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt; and the Swedish Nobel Laureate, neurophysiologist, Torsten Wiesel.

In order to fix an important security vulnerability of the Linux kernel, most of the departmental services have been restarted this morning.

This has now been completed.

Merton College has announced its intention to elect Professor Sir Martin Taylor, FRS, to the Wardenship from 1 October 2010.

Further details are available.

A fault appears to have begun developing with the departmental firewall about 7:30pm on Tuesday 27th October. The firewall appears to have limped along offering intermittent service until about 10:30pm.

Repairs to the firewall were attempted this morning and service was briefly restored. In parallel work was done on the department's new firewall to bring it into service early if required.

Service is expected to be restored via the new firewall by 11:30am should the old kit not be fixed by that time.

Apologies to all for the inconvenience.

Update: service was restored at 11:14am.

Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science Marcus Du Sautoy will deliver his Inaugural Lecture on Wednesday 25 November, at 5.30 p.m. A reception will follow the lecture.

Venue: Examination Schools
75-81 High Street, Oxford, OX1 4BG
Lecture commences at 5.30 p.m.

Doors open 4.30pm
5.30-6.30pm: lecture
6.30-7.30pm: reception

NB: This event is free, but tickets are required. Please register your attendance and print out a free ticket at http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/inauguralsimonyi. You will need to specify the number of people on your party, and print out a free ticket for each of them. No one will be admitted to the lecture without a ticket.

Galileo once wrote: "The universe cannot be read until we have learnt the language in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word." Mathematics is the key to many of the greatest scientific and technological advances made throughout the ages. For artists too, mathematics underpins many steps in the creative process. From the tiles in the Alhambra to Bach's Goldberg Variations, there are mathematical structures hiding behind these great works of art. In this lecture, I shall explore the power of this mathematical language to help navigate Nature's dark labyrinth and to take us into new worlds we could hardly hope to conceive of.

Sir Andrew Wiles will be joining the Mathematical Instiute as a Royal Society 2010 Anniversary Research Professor.

Sir Andrew Wiles specialises in number theory and became famous for proving Fermat’s Last Theorem. The Theorem was first conjectured in 1637 but all attempts to solve it failed until Sir Andrew Wiles published his general proof in 1995 to international acclaim. His achievement was popularised in Simon Singh’s book Fermat’s Last Theorem and BBC Two’s Horizon. He will be moving from Princeton University to take up his new Royal Society Professorship at Oxford’s Mathematical Institute and Merton College in 2011.

For further information see this Oxford University news item

The University of Oxford has recently completed a Masterplan which sets out a vision for the redevelopment of the former Radcliffe Infirmary site for new academic research and teaching buildings. The completion of the Masterplan represents a key milestone in the redevelopment of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.

The University is now seeking detailed planning permission for the second phase of the Masterplan: two new buildings to house the Humanities Division & Library and the Mathematical Institute. In advance of submitting planning applications to Oxford City Council, the University is consulting residents, stakeholders, staff and students on the proposals.

An exhibition will be held in St Luke's Chapel (at the front of the old Radcliffe Infirmary site on Woodstock Road) on the 15th and 16th October, 2pm-7:30pm both days. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to inspect the proposals and ask any questions of the members of the Project Team.

Welcome to our new colleagues from the Numerical Analysis group, who joined the department from the Computing Laboratory on 1 October. In 2009/10, they will be housed at 3 Worcester St. They will move to the Gibson Building in 2010/11.

Our MSc in Mathematical Finance programme is structured to allow those working full-time to develop expertise in mathematical finance without compromising their professional work. The course covers all the areas of mathematical finance currently deployed in financial institutions, it also enables students to focus on topics most relevant to them.

The course has been revised and restructured in the wake of the global financial crisis. There is a new module specifically on quantitative risk management. In addition to presenting classical risk management tools, currently employed methodologies are scrutinised on the backdrop of recent risk management failures, and new directions proposed.

The deadline for applications for a January 2010 start is 2nd November. For further details see the course pages.

1. Leverhulme Trust: Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (deadline: 16 November)
2. BBSRC: New Impact Section on BBSRC website

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1. Leverhulme Leverhulme Trust: SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS

These provide a period of research leave for one year for established scholars during which they will be able to complete a major piece of research while their normal teaching and administrative duties are covered by a full-time replacement.
Award amount max: Not specified
External deadline: 07 December 2009; internal deadline: 16 November 2009.

website link: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/srf.cfm

2. BBSRC: New impact section on BBSRC website

BBSRC have added a section about impact to their website which explains their definition of the term and provides case study examples.

website link: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/science/impact/index.html