Oxford Mathematicians Martin Bridson and Endre Suli have been elected to Academia Europaea.
Wed, 28 Oct 2020
17:00 -
18:00
Oxford Mathematics Online Public Lecture: David Sumpter - How Learning Ten Equations Can Improve Your Life
Further Information
Is there a secret formula for becoming rich? Or for happiness? Or for becoming popular? Or for self-confidence and good judgement? David Sumpter answer these questions with an emphatic ‘Yes!' All YOU need are The Ten Equations.
In this lecture David will reveal three of these: the confidence equation that helps gamblers know when they have a winning strategy; the influencer equation that shapes our social interactions; and the learning equation that YouTube used to get us addicted to their videos. A small group of mathematicians have used these equations to revolutionise our world. Now you can use them too to better manage your time and make money, have a more balanced approach to your popularity and even to become a nicer person.
To order the book 'The Ten Equations That Rule the World' signed by David Sumpter from Blackwell's Bookshop, email @email by 15 November and they will provide you with all the information you need.
David Sumpter is Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Uppsala, Sweden.
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The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
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Thu, 08 Oct 2020
17:00 -
18:00
Oxford Mathematics Online Public Lecture: Tim Harford - How to Make the World Add up
Further Information
When was the last time you read a grand statement, accompanied by a large number, and wondered whether it could really be true?
Statistics are vital in helping us tell stories – we see them in the papers, on social media, and we hear them used in everyday conversation – and yet we doubt them more than ever. But numbers, in the right hands, have the power to change the world for the better. Contrary to popular belief, good statistics are not a trick, although they are a kind of magic. Good statistics are like a telescope for an astronomer, or a microscope for a bacteriologist. If we are willing to let them, good statistics help us see things about the world around us and about ourselves.
Tim Harford is a senior columnist for the Financial Times, the presenter of Radio 4’s More or Less and is a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. His books include The Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy, Messy, and The Undercover Economist.
To order a personalised copy of Tim's book email @email, providing your name and contact phone number/email and the personalisation you would like. You can then pick up from 16/10 or contact Blackwell's on 01865 792792 from that date to pay and have it sent.
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The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Fri, 25 Sep 2020
15:00 -
16:00
Virtual
Differentiating Lychees and Grapes
Yossi Bokor
(Australian National University/University of Sydney)
Abstract
Distinguishing classes of surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is a task which arises in many situations. There are many characteristics we can use to solve this classification problem. The Persistent Homology Transform allows us to look at shapes in $\mathbb{R}^n$ from $S^{n-1}$ directions simultaneously, and is a useful tool for surface classification. Using the Julia package DiscretePersistentHomologyTransform, we will look at some example curves in $\mathbb{R}^2$ and examine distinguishing features.
Fri, 21 Aug 2020
15:00 -
16:00
Virtual
Noisy neurons and rainbow worms: theoretical and statistical perspectives on trees and their barcodes
Adélie Garin
(École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL))
Abstract
The TMD algorithm (Kanari et al. 2018) computes the barcode of a neuron (tree) with respect to the radial or path distance from the soma (root). We are interested in the inverse problem: how to understand the space of trees that are represented by the same barcode. Our tool to study this spaces is the stochastic TNS algorithm (Kanari et al. 2020) which generates trees from a given barcode in a biologically meaningful way.
I will present some theoretical results on the space of trees that have the same barcode, as well as the effect of adding noise to the barcode. In addition, I will provide a more combinatorial perspective on the space of barcodes, expressed in terms of the symmetric group. I will illustrate these results with experiments based on the TNS.
This is joint work with L. Kanari and K. Hess.
Mathematical models have been used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to help plan public health measures. Attention is now turning to how interventions can be removed while continuing to restrict transmission. Predicting the effects of different possible COVID-19 exit strategies is an important current challenge requiring mathematical modelling, but many uncertainties remain.