Maths on the Move

Chuck Gill caught the space bug as a child when watching Alan Shepherd launch into space. Since then he's worked as a US Air Force navigator, a satellite operator, and in the US intelligence service. These days he's busy reducing carbon emissions and preparing London for the 2012 Olympics. Plus went to see him to find out more about his career. This podcast accompanies the career interview from issue 48 of Plus.

Peter Markowich is a mathematician who likes to take pictures. At first his two interest seemed completely separate to him, but then he realised that behind every picture there is a mathematical story to tell. Plus went to see him to find out more, and ended up with an introduction to partial differential equations. This podcast accompanies the article Universal pictures.

The Fourier transform is a piece of maths that is, almost single-handedly, responsible for the digital revolution. Digital music and images would be impossible without it and it has applications in anything from

medical imaging to landmine detection. We asked Chris Budd what the Fourier

transform does, and how it does it. This podcast accompanies the Plus

article Saving lives: The mathematics of tomography.

Maths has long been a theme in the movies.

This week, Plus talks to Madeleine Shepherd, organiser of the

maths film festival at the recent Edinburgh science festival, about how

maths has been presented in the movies over the years, with particular

reference to three more recent films, Cube, Pi and Flatland. For more on

maths in the movies read the Plus article Maths, madness and movies.

This podcast accompanies the career interview in issue 47 of

Plus. Barry Phipps is the first interdisciplinary fellow with the Kettle's Yard

gallery in Cambridge. His remit is to develop projects of an

interdisciplinary nature, to find the common ground between things. This

week, Plus talks to Barry about breaking down the barriers between

artists and scientists and creating greater dialogue because, as Barry says,

science and art are intrinsically related at the centre, and there is no

stepping away from one to be another.

From the complexity of the snowflake, to the London tube map and the spiralling Andromeda galaxy, imagery has always been a vitally important ingredient of science. This week, Plus talks to John Barrow, professor of mathematics at Cambridge University and author of the new book Cosmic Imagery, about the images that have changed science, and how we have viewed science, over the centuries.

The Enigma machine was once considered unbreakable, and the cracking of the "unbreakable code" by the allies changed the course of World War 2. This week, Plus talks to Nadia Baker from the Enigma Project about the history of codes and code-breaking, why the Enigma machine was considered unbreakable, the mathematics behind codes, and how it was finally cracked. The Enigma Project travels all over the United Kingdom and abroad, visiting over 100 schools and organisations, reaching over 12,000 people of all ages every year.

Bacon sandwiches, drinking while pregnant, obesity - health risks are a favourite with the media. But behind the simple numbers quoted in the headlines lies a huge and sophisticated body of statistical research. We talk to Professor Sheila Bird of the Biostatistics Unit in Cambridge about her work in public health and its impact on policy, and discuss bias in pharmaceutical studies, as recently highlighted by the controversy around antidepressants.

We talk to four researchers from UCL's centre for mathematics and physics in the life sciences and experimental biology (COMPLEX) about the role of maths in such fields as astrobiology, cancer modelling and biology.

We talk to Nira Chamberlain about his job as a modelling consultant involving aircraft carriers, telecommunication networks, staying slim and speaking French.