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The Mathematical Institute Colloquia are funded in part by the generosity of Oxford University Press.

This Colloquium is supported by a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship award.

Bach, the Universe and Everything is a partnership between Oxford Mathematics, Music at Oxford and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment where we put on our very own Sunday service for curious minds; a place where music and science rub shoulders. And a place where you get to join in.

The Science
You’ve heard that some people find mathematics as beautiful as Bach’s music, but you’re not really sure why. Dr Vicky Neale is here to convince you it is, as she explores the intoxicating mysteries of prime numbers and how they push the limits of human understanding.

The Music
BWV 196 is one of Bach’s first cantatas, written when he was in his early twenties for a friend’s wedding. It features a striking soprano aria, and an overall theme of ‘partnership’, with two factions of instruments uniting to become one.

Book here

Join us in Oxford Mathematics on 27th February 2020 for a talk and discussion celebrating the Bodleian Libraries' release of interviews by Georgina Ferry of some of Oxford’s female computing pioneers.

Some remarkable women shaped Oxford computing: Dorothy Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize for work on insulin; Susan Hockey pioneered digital humanities; Shirley Carter, Linda Hayes and Joan Walsh got the pioneering software company NAG off the ground in 1970; and female operators and programmers were at the heart of the early large-scale computing efforts powering 20th-century science.

4.30pm: Welcome tea
5.00pm: Professor June Barrow-Green - Hidden histories: Oxford’s female computing pioneers
5.45pm: Panel discussion chaired by science writer Georgina Ferry and featuring some of the the pioneers themselves

No need to register.

There is a beautiful mathematical theory of how independent agents tend to synchronise their behaviour when weakly coupled. Examples include how audiences spontaneously rhythmically applause and how nearby pendulum clocks tend to move in sync. Another famous example is that of the London Millennium Bridge. On the day it opened, the bridge underwent unwanted lateral vibrations that are widely believed to be due to pedestrians synchronising their footsteps.

In this talk Alan will explain how this theory is in fact naive and there is a simpler mathematical theory that is more consistent with the facts and which explains how other bridges have behaved including Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge. He will also reflect on the nature of mathematical modelling and the interplay between mathematics, engineering and the real world. 

Alan Champneys is a Professor of Applied Non-linear Mathematics at the University of Bristol. 

Please email @email to register.

Watch live:
https://twitter.com/OxUniMaths
https://www.facebook.com/OxfordMathematics/
https://livestream.com/oxuni/Champneys

The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

This lecture is about mathematical visualization: how to make accurate, effective, and beautiful pictures, models, and experiences of mathematical concepts. What is it that makes a visualization compelling? 

Henry will show examples in the medium of 3D printing, as well as his work in virtual reality and spherical video. He will also discuss his experiences in teaching a project-based class on 3D printing for mathematics students.

Henry Segerman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Oklahoma State University.

Please email @email to register.

Watch live:
https://www.facebook.com/OxfordMathematics/
https://livestream.com/oxuni/Segerman

The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

How do you make a star-shaped Cheerio? How do they make the glass on your smartphone screen so flat? And how can you make a vacuum filter that removes the most dust before it blocks? All of these are very different challenges that fall under the umbrella of industrial mathematics. While each of these questions might seem very different, they all have a common theme: we know the final properties of the product we want to make and need to come up with a way of manufacturing this. In this talk we show how we can use mathematics to start with the final desired product and trace the fluid dynamics problem ‘back in time’ to enable us to manufacture products that would otherwise be impossible to produce.

Ian Griffiths is a Professor of Industrial Mathematics and a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford. 

Please email @email to register.

Watch live:
https://www.facebook.com/OxfordMathematics/
https://livestream.com/oxuni/Griffiths

The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

The second in our fascinating collaboration with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) and Music at Oxford combines the muscial intelligence of the eighteenth century with the artificial intelligence of the twenty-first. Come along and hear the beauty of Bach's Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Now come, Saviour of the Gentiles) and the modern beauty of machine learning which may itself be the musical choice of audiences in 300 years' time.

The OAE provide the music (you even get to join in), Marcus delivers the sermon. Maths and Music; saying everything.

Book here