Latest news

The first ever Ito prize has been awared to Ben Hambly, James Martin and Neil O'Connell for their paper 'Concentration results for a Brownian directed percolation problem'.

The prize has just been instituted and is awarded for a recent paper published in the journal 'Stochastic processes and their applications'. The prize was awarded in Rio at the annual conference on stochastic processes and their applications.

Warm congratulations to John Ball, who is to be the recipient of the first David Crighton Medal, awarded by the LMS and the IMA.

Citation

The David Crighton Medal for 2003 for services to Mathematics and to the mathematics community is awarded to Professor John Ball, F.R.S., Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Oxford (currently on sabbatical leave at Princeton University, USA).

John Ball is an outstanding mathematician of international standing. At the same time he has exerted himself both nationally and internationally for the good of Mathematics and its community. In particular, his activity internationally has done much to raise the profile of UK Mathematics, especially of Applied Mathematics. He has an exceptional record of getting things done and making things happen - in this he demonstrates the qualities of David Crighton himself.

Nationally, he was very effective in pressing for and establishing an Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Scotland; it was very much due to his efforts that the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences was set up in Edinburgh more than 10 years ago. Over the years it has been, and remains, an important national asset and one whose programmes are complementary to those of the Isaac Newton Institute.

John Ball was President of the London Mathematical Society from 1996-1998, and led the Society's moves throughout that period to increase its activity and influence in its promotion of mathematics and its links with other bodies.

He has been a member of the Council of the EPSRC, nominated by the Royal Society and speaking up for mathematics as well as for the sciences and engineering. He chaired the 1998 EPSRC review of the Isaac Newton Institute and served on the board of BRIMS (Hewlett-Packard) at Bristol.

Internationally, John Ball has been for some years a leading member of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), its Fields Medal Committee and of its Council. At the 2002 Beijing Congress he was elected President of the IMU for the next four years, bringing distinction to the UK mathematics community. He was one of the five members of the Abel Prize committee which awarded its first international prize in June 2003.

John Ball's research focuses on applications to solid materials, bringing to bear an armoury of knowledge and techniques of mathematical analysis and algebra. He has developed an approach to applied mathematics which brings a greater degree of mathematical rigour to bear.

In one of his earliest papers he discussed "discontinuous equilibrium solutions and cavitation in non-linear elasticity". The discussion centred on the emergence of a hole, cavity or void in a solid material subject to traction, and brings into play mathematical concepts of singular solutions, weak solutions energy-minimisers and Lyapunov functions. This paper illustrates in many ways his fine qualities in linking Mathematics with mechanics.

In later work with RD James, John Ball developed a non-linear theory of martensites, materials with a fine structure in which the concept of an energy infimum can be used in the way that is different from the rubberlike materials; for martensites there is no true minimiser, no true infimum, but the minimiser-infimum can be approached indefinitely closely by a sequential development of finer and finer structure.

His work indicates how mathematical concepts can be brought to bear to explain phenomena of real importance. At the EPSRC-IMA-LMS conference in 2001, on 'Connectivity between Mathematics and Engineering', Ball's contribution was a highlight, showing how the choice of the space of functions is of such importance in ensuring that the numerical/computational scheme gives a solution that converges.

Warm congratulations to the Oxford winners of London Mathematical Society prizes in 2003:

• Senior Whitehead Prize: Dr Peter Neumann
• Whitehead Prize: Dr Marc Lackenby

The London Mathematical Society Popular Lectures for 2003 were given, in Manchester and London, by David Acheson ('Mathematics, Magic and the Electric Guitar') and Marcus du Sautoy ('The Music of the Primes').

Professor Frances Kirwan, FRS, has been named as President Designate of the London Mathematical Society. When she takes over from the current President, Professor Peter Goddard, in November, she will be the second youngest holder of the office in the Society's history. She will be third Oxford President in recent years (Professor Nigel Hitchin held the presidency from 1994 to 1996; Professor John Ball from 1996 to 1998).

Dr Leonard Smith has been awarded the Fitzroy Prize of the Royal Meteorological Society for 2003. The award is made for `Distinguished work in applied meteorology' and is aptly named. Captain Fitzroy is most often remembered as the Commander of HMS Beagle, and this award was earned by the work of both current and former department members including Mark Roulston, David Orrell, Jim Hansen and Isla Gilmour. Fitzroy also founded the Met Office in 1854 to provide meteorological and sea current information to mariners while Mark now downloads weather forecasts every night and dresses them to make them more useful for our industrial Faraday partners.

Professor John Wilson will be taking up a part-time position in the department in October, following his retirement from the University of Birmingham. John is a leading international figure in group theory. His appointment brings new strength to the algebra group and will help to sustain the quality of undergraduate teaching in algebra.

Professor John Allen has been selected to receive the 2003 von Engl prize for his achievements in the field of physics and technology of plasmas and ionized gases.

Jeanette Woerner has been awarded a Sofia Kovalevskaja Visiting-Professorship at Kaiserslautern in 2003/04. She will spend two periods of six weeks each there, giving some lecture courses and meeting their large finance group.

Patrick McSharry has been awarded a five year Research Fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering and EPSRC to investigate the applications of nonlinear time series analysis tools for facilitating medical diagnosis from biomedical signals.