I plan to discuss finite time singularities for the harmonic map heat flow and describe a beautiful example of winding behaviour due to Peter Topping.

I will report on some joint work with Jacob Tsimerman
concerning multiplicative relations among singular moduli.
Our results rely on the ``Ax-Schanuel'' theorem for the j-function
recently proved by us, which I will describe.

Phylogenies, or evolutionary histories, play a central role in modern biology, illustrating the interrelationships between species, and also aiding the prediction of structural, physiological, and biochemical properties. The reconstruction of the underlying evolutionary history from a set of morphological characters or biomolecular sequences is difficult since the optimality criteria favored by biologists are NP-hard, and the space of possible answers is huge. Phylogenies are often modeled by trees with n leaves, and the number of possible phylogenetic trees is $(2n-5)!!$. Due to the hardness and the large number of possible answers, clever searching techniques and heuristics are used to estimate the underlying tree.

We explore the combinatorial structure of the underlying space of trees, under different metrics, in particular the nearest-neighbor-interchange (NNI), subtree- prune-and-regraft (SPR), tree-bisection-and-reconnection (TBR), and Robinson-Foulds (RF) distances.  Further, we examine the interplay between the metric chosen and the difficulty of the search for the optimal tree.

How many $H$-free graphs are there on $n$ vertices? What is the typical structure of such a graph $G$? And how do these answers change if we restrict the number of edges of $G$? In this talk I will describe some recent progress on these basic and classical questions, focusing on the cases $H=K_{r+1}$ and $H=C_{2k}$. The key tools are the hypergraph container method, the Janson inequalities, and some new "balanced" supersaturation results. The techniques are quite general, and can be used to study similar questions about objects such sum-free sets, antichains and metric spaces.

I will mention joint work with a number of different coauthors, including Jozsi Balogh, Wojciech Samotij, David Saxton, Lutz Warnke and Mauricio Collares Neto. 

Law in mathematics and mathematics in law: Probability theory and the fair price in contracts in England and France 1700–1850

From the middle of the eighteenth century, references to mathematicians such as Edmond Halley and Abraham De Moivre begin to appear in judgments in English courts on the law of contract and French mathematicians such as Antoine Deparcieux and Emmanuel-Etienne Duvillard de Durand are mentioned in French treatises on contract law in the first half of the nineteenth century. In books on the then nascent subject of probability at the beginning of the eighteenth century, discussions of legal problems and principally contracts, are especially prominent. Nicolas Bernoulli’s thesis at Basle in 1705 on The Use of the Art of Conjecturing in Law was aptly called a Dissertatio Inauguralis Matematico-Juridica. In England, twenty years later, De Moivre dedicated one of his books on probability to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Macclesfield and expressly referred to its significance for contract law.

The objective of this paper is to highlight this textual interaction between law and mathematics and consider its significance for both disciplines but primarily for law. Probability was an applied science before it became theoretical. Legal problems, particularly those raised by the law of contract, were one of the most frequent applications and as such played an essential role in the development of this subject from its inception. In law, probability was particularly important in contracts. The idea that exchanges must be fair, that what one receives must be the just price for what one gives, has had a significant influence on European contract law since the Middle Ages. Probability theory allowed, for the first time, such an idea to be applied to the sale of interests which began or terminated on the death of certain people. These interests, particularly reversionary interests in land and personal property in English law and rentes viagères in French law were very common in practice at this time. This paper will consider the surprising and very different practical effects of these mathematical texts on English and French contract law especially during their formative period in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Artist Antoni Malinowski has been commissioned to produce a major wall painting in the foyer of the new Mathematical Institute in Oxford, the Andrew Wiles Building. To celebrate and introduce that work Antoni and a series of distinguished speakers will demonstrate the different impacts and perceptions of colour produced by the micro-structure of the pigments, from an explanation of the pigments themselves to an examination of how the brain perceives colour.

Speakers:

Jo Volley, Gary Woodley and Malina Busch, the Pigment Timeline Project, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London

‘Pigment Timeline’

Dr. Ruth Siddall - Senior Lecturer in Earth Sciences, University College London

‘Pigments: microstructure and origins?’  

Antoni Malinowski

‘Spectrum Materialised’ 

Prof. Hannah Smithson Associate Professor, Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow, Pembroke College

‘Colour Perception‘

11.30am, Lecture Theatre 1

Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford

Andrew Wiles Building

Radcliffe Observatory Quarter

No booking required