The Secrets of Mathematics

Much is written about life as an undergraduate at Oxford but what is it really like? As Oxford Mathematics's new first-year students arrive (273 of them, comprising 33 nationalities) we thought we would take the opportunity to go behind the scenes and share some of their experiences.

Our starting point is a first week lecture. In this case the second lecture from 'An Introduction to Complex Numbers' by Dr. Vicky Neale. Whether you are a past student, an aspiring student or just curious as to how teaching works, come and take a seat.

With topics ranging from prime numbers to the lottery, from lemmings to bending balls like Beckham, Professor Marcus du Sautoy provides an entertaining and, perhaps, unexpected approach to explain how mathematics can be used to predict the future. We are very grateful to Solihull School for hosting this lecture.

The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets

Marcus du Sautoy and Professor Rosalind Picard for 2018's annual Simonyi Lecture: Can we build AI with Emotional Intelligence? Today’s AI can play games, drive cars, even do our jobs for us. But surely our human emotional world is beyond the limits of what AI can achieve? In this year’s Annual Charles Simonyi Lecture, Professor Rosalind Picard challenges that belief. Robots, wearables, and other AI technologies are gaining the ability to sense, recognize, and respond intelligently to human emotion. This talk will highlight several important findings made at MIT, including surprises about the 'true smile of happiness,' and finding electrical signals on the wrist that reveal insight into deep brain activity, with implications for autism, anxiety, epilepsy, mood disorders, and more.

Rosalind Picard is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, faculty chair of MindHandHeart, and cofounder of Affectiva and cofounder and chief scientist of Empatica. Picard is the author of 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and known internationally for her book Affective Computing, which is credited for launching the field by that name. Picard is an active inventor with over a dozen patents and her lab's achievements have been profiled worldwide including in Wired, New Scientist and on the BBC.

In our Oxford Mathematics London Public Lecture Roger Penrose in conversation with Hannah Fry reveals his latest research, a veritable chain reaction of universes, which he says has been backed by evidence of events that took place before the Big Bang. With Conformal Cyclic Cosmology he argues that, instead of a single Big Bang, the universe cycles from one aeon to the next. Each universe leaves subtle imprints on the next when it pops into being. Energy can 'burst through' from one universe to the next, at what he calls ‘Hawking points.’

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

In this lecture Roger Penrose uses M.C Escher's work to illustrate and explain important mathematical ideas and their connections to the visual arts. Roger Penrose's work has ranged across many aspects of mathematics and its applications from his influential work on gravitational collapse to his work on quantum gravity. However, Roger has long had an interest in and influence on the visual arts and their connections to mathematics, most notably in his collaboration with Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher.

Oxford Mathematics hosted this special event in its Public Lecture series during the conference to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the foundation of the Clay Mathematics Institute. After the lecture Roger was presented with the Clay Award for the Dissemination of Mathematical Knowledge. The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

John Ball is retiring as Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Oxford oldest Scientific Chair. In this interview he charts the journey of the Applied Mathematician.as the subject has developed over the last 50 years. Describing his struggles with exams and his time at Cambridge, Sussex and Heriot-Watt before coming to Oxford in 1996, John reflects on walking round St Petersburg with Perelman, his views on how to choose and pursue your research, his work at the International Mathematical Union and in Nepal and the vital importance of family (and football).

The World population is growing at about 80 million per year. As time goes by, there is necessarily less space per person. Perhaps this is why the scientific community seems to be obsessed with folding things. In this lecture Dick James presents a mathematical approach to “rigid folding” inspired by the way atomistic structures form naturally - their features at a molecular level imply desirable features for macroscopic structures as well, especially 4D structures. Origami structures even suggest an unusual way to look at the Periodic Table.

Richard D. James is Distinguished McKnight University Professor the University of Minnesota.

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

Archimedes, who famously jumped out of his bath shouting "Eureka", also 'invented' the number pi. Euler invented e and had fun with his formula e^(2 pi i) = 1. The world is full of important numbers waiting to be invented. Why not have a go? Michael Atiyah is one of the world's leading mathematicians and a pivotal figure in twentieth and twenty-first century mathematics. His lecture is followed by an interview with Sir John Ball, Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy here in Oxford, where Michael talks about his lecture, his work and his life as a mathematician.

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

The human brain is the object of the ultimate intellectual egocentrism. It is also a source of endless scientific problems and an organ of such complexity that it is not clear that a mathematical approach is even possible, despite many attempts. In this talk Alain will use the brain to showcase how applied mathematics thrives on such challenges. Through mathematical modelling, we will see how we can gain insight into how the brain acquires its convoluted shape and what happens during trauma. We will also consider the dramatic but fascinating progression of neuro-degenerative diseases, and, eventually, hope to learn a bit about who we are before it is too late.

Alain Goriely is Professor of Mathematical Modelling, University of Oxford and author of 'Applied Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction.'

Euler’s equation, the ‘most beautiful equation in mathematics’, startlingly connects the five most important constants in the subject: 1, 0, π, e and i. Central to both mathematics and physics. So what is this equation – and why is it pioneering? Robin Wilson is an Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University, Emeritus Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, and a former Fellow of Keble College, Oxford.