Maths News 2012 [F]_Maths newsletter 1 02/07/2012 13:38 Page 2

Oxford Mathematical Institute Spring 2012, Number 10 Newsletter

We hope that you enjoy receiving this annual Newsletter. We are interested to receive your The earth moves comments, and also contributions for future Construction has begun on the new Newsletters. Mathematical Institute building on the Please write to the editor: Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, after a ground- Robin Wilson breaking ceremony on 2 August. MI Newsletter Mathematical Institute The building is due to be completed in June 24–29 St Giles 2013. It will house a substantial enterprise – in OX1 3LB, or send e-mails to him, c/o particular, about 1 in 11 of all undergraduates [email protected] reads for one of our degrees, and the new Institute will give them much better facilities. It Design & production by Baseline Arts has been designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects and is being constructed by Laing O’Rourke.

The development represents a landmark step in KEEP OUT! at Oxford University, bringing Ill-informed visitors to the Institute building together researchers from three separate site are discouraged buildings into a single dedicated faculty. The new from entering, by a Institute building, with more than 300 offices, large notice in Greek will house lecture and seminar spaces, meeting featuring Plato's rooms and a large departmental common room. It undergraduates and a diverse community of warning 'Let no one will be the main workplace for more than 500 college research fellows and lecturers. It will also destitute of geometry enter my door'. academics and support staff, as well as providing enable members of the mathematics department the focus of academic life for nearly 1000 to increase their outreach work. ■

Top right: Sam Howison (Department Chairman) realises a lifetime’s ambition

Right: Nick Woodhouse (former Department Chairman), Sam Howison, Lavinia Clay (benefactor), Sir and Ewan McKendrick (University Registrar) start to dig out 43,000 tonnes of earth from the basement of the new building

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Obituary Daniel Quillen (1948–2011) Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics and Fellow of Magdalen College (1984–2006)

A personal tribute by deeply in it, perhaps for several years, Sir , OM, FRS and then emerge with a beautifully Oxford’s winners: Michael Atiyah, crafted paper, full of new and creative and Daniel Quillen Dan Quillen was part of the reverse ideas. He did this time and time again, in authored. This was both a weakness and brain-drain, Americans who left the US geometry and associated algebraic a strength. Being part of a team can be and settled in Britain: he was very far structures. His influence has been very productive, but it reduces the role of from being the standard American enormous and he has left his mark on the the lone thinker. Mathematics needs all academic in pursuit of ever larger mathematics of our time. kinds of thinkers, and individualists like salaries. He settled in Oxford, with his Dan Quillen are badly needed. ■ wife Jean and their six children, because he liked the more sedate intellectual and cultural atmosphere. He had three passions in his life – his family, his Quillen Memorial mathematics and his music – and Oxford Meeting was in his judgement the place where they could all flourish. A special meeting took place on 19 November in the Grove Auditorium at I first met Dan at Harvard when he was a Schori D. by Photo Daniel Quillen Magdalen College to celebrate the life graduate student of my close friend and and work of Daniel Quillen. The collaborator . I remember Dan Although he solved many famous organizers were , Frances then as full of boyish enthusiasm, with problems his most important work, Kirwan, Glenys Luke, Graeme Segal and bright eyes and terrier-like tenacity. His recognized by his 1978 Fields Medal, Ulrike Tillmann, and the invited guest boyishness never left him and saved him was his development of higher algebraic lecturers were Michael Hopkins from becoming in later life a staid K-theory. This had its origins in the work (Harvard), Graeme Segal (Oxford) and professor. of Grothendieck in , Sir Michael Atiyah (Edinburgh). The the follow-up in topology by Hirzebruch proceedings concluded with a concert, a Dan was an individualist, going his own and myself (based on the Bott reception and a dinner. ■ way, but very much influenced by the periodicity theorem), and preliminary leading figures of the time. From his work of Milnor with links to number supervisor Raoul Bott he acquired a large theory. But Quillen’s contribution was eclectic view of mathematics, with beauty extraordinarily simple and universal. The Memorial Fund in the foreground and a grand vision Quillen K-groups are now central to a beyond. For a while the French school of vast domain of algebra, We’re collecting contributions for a room Serre and Grothendieck, with its elegance and geometry and have generated great in Dan Quillen’s honour in the new and power, greatly attracted him and visions for the future. Many conjectures Mathematical Institute, to house the helped to form his own philosophical have been built on Quillen’s framework large collection of his notes; a list of approach. In Oxford he was surrounded by and will keep busy for donors will be kept in the room. geometers of various descriptions where decades to come. To contribute, please go to he was, in a broad sense, at home but he www.giving.ox.ac.uk/maths and select enjoyed being left to develop his own Although Dan was well versed in the The Dan Quillen Memorial Fund, or, if individual ideas. grand developments of the time he was you wish to use a form, please use the never part of a ‘mathematical school’. He one enclosed or download one from This is not the place to record or assess in remained his own man and never joined www.maths.ox.ac.uk/giving. If using a any detail his many original mathematical the latest bandwagon. This was, to some form, please note that you wish the gift contributions, but I would like to convey extent, a reflection of his personality. to go to the Dan Quillen Memorial Fund. something of the spirit and style of his Unlike his charismatic mentor Raoul Bott, Please also consider claiming gift aid, work. Typically Dan would identify a topic he was a quiet person who liked to think which can increase the value of your that interested him, immerse himself very on his own. Few of his papers are jointly gift by 25% or more. ■

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Chairman's letter

in-the-ground in Oxford. Work started 15 ‘impact case studies’, explaining the Chairman’s with the ground-breaking ceremony in impact that our work has had outside August of last year, and by January the academia. It remains to be seen how letter contractors had excavated down to ten easy this is to do. metres below ground across the whole What a difference footprint of our site. It won’t take long to Mathematics has a huge impact on a year can make! fill the hole, though: topping-out of the society, in ways that are often Since I last wrote, frame is due at the end of this coming unforeseen and hard to document within the University's August, with the building to be filled in, the REF rules. But you only need to Council has given clad, and fitted out by the following June. consider the RSA encryption algorithm, us the go-ahead or Google’s PageRank, to see that for our new The other big event on the horizon is the sophisticated mathematics can have huge building and work Research Excellence Framework (REF) economic value; these two examples are has started. assessment, due in 2013–14. Along with just the tip of the iceberg. all other UK universities, we shall be Our planning is no longer hypothetical: assessed on the quality of our research As ever, we are enormously grateful to the design choices we make are what we and the environment we provide for it. A our friends within Oxford and outside. shall get, from lecture theatre layout to new feature this time, compared with the We are at an exciting time of great door handles. What we actually have, at previous exercise in 2008, is that we and change, and your encouragement and the time of writing, is the biggest hole- our colleagues in Statistics have to write support are vital to our success. ■

cypher that Moriarty uses to carry his Sherlock Holmes and the case evil plots: This code is based on Moriarty’s fascination with the binomial of the Oxford theorem, Pascal’s triangle, and the Fibonacci p-codes. It is elaborate and Professor Moriarty, a mathematical Warner Bros. to give mathematical reliable, as only Moriarty could have genius, is a tough opponent. He’s credibility to the movie. come up with. smart, evil and relentless – a perfect match for Robert Downey Jr. and Jude According to Prof. Goriely: Dr Moulton and Prof. Goriely also wrote Law in the new Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle probably felt that an entire mathematical lecture that movie (A Game of Shadows), released equations didn’t fit easily into his story. Moriarty gives around Europe. The in December by Warner Bros. However, on the screen they’re perfect lecture, entitled ‘Singularity, collisions – powerful, beautiful and mysterious. and blow-ups in the N-body problem’, Moriarty’s formulas for world domination, They tell us everything we need to is based on Moriarty’s second book The as seen in the film, aren’t the stuff of know about the Professor. This guy is Dynamics of an Asteroid and was road- fantasy. They are the stuff of Prof. Alain smart. Sherlock is in trouble and the tested by Prof. Goriely at the Oxford Goriely and Dr Derek Moulton, from the clues are all on the board. Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematical Institute, who helped Mathematics (OCCAM) a year ago The Oxford pair’s brief was to design behind closed doors: the blackboard in Moriarty’s office, a Celestial mechanics was a hot topic by gigantic board filled with intricate, the end of the 19th century, and beautiful, yet mathematically exact, Moriarty could see the benefit of equations and formulas: computing ballistic trajectories and Unfortunately, Conan Doyle told us very collision events for his own little about Prof. Moriarty, and we had Machiavellian plans. Do not be to do some sleuthing of our own. The surprised if there are a lot of big guns challenges were multiple and complex. in the movie. Mathematics has done Our first task was to give Moriarty so much good for mankind, but this some intellectual and mathematical was a reminder of what happens when depth, consistent with the period from it falls into the wrong hands. Without the hints and clues lightly sprinkled revealing too much, by the end it is among the Sherlock Holmes stories. the mathematics itself that defeats Then, we designed the code and Moriarty! ■

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Oxford Mathematical Institutes

Oxford Mathematical institutes through the ages

Nick Woodhouse and Robin Wilson

E. A narrow strip of ground, railed off and carefully levelled, for investigating the properties of Asymptotes, and testing practically whether Parallel Lines meet or not: for this purpose it should reach, to use the expressive language of Euclid, ‘ever so far.’ This last process, of ‘continually producing the The earliest ‘mathematical institute’ in Oxford Lines,’ may require centuries or more: but such a may have been the School of Geometry and period, though long in the life of an individual, Arithmetic, whose doorway can still be seen in is as nothing in the life of the University… the Schools Quadrangle of the Bodleian May I trust that you will give your immediate Library, built in 1600–20. Later, mathematical attention to this most important subject? lectures were given in the Old Ashmolean Charles Dodgson, Believe me, Sincerely yours, MATHEMATICUS. (now the Museum for the History of Science). Mathematical Lecturer at Christ Church, 1856- On 5 June 1930, G. H. Hardy, then Savilian In the 19th century, lectures were mainly given in 1881 Professor of Geometry in Oxford, wrote a short colleges, prompting Charles Dodgson (Lewis article for the Oxford Magazine. In his article he Carroll) to write a whimsical letter to the Senior ■ bemoaned the lack of attention to Censor of Christ Church. After commenting on the mathematics by the University; unwholesome nature of lobster sauce and the ■ encouraged Oxford to build up a fine accompanying nightmares it can produce, he mathematical school, saying that remarked: ‘mathematicians are reasonably cheap, This naturally brings me on to the subject of but they cannot be had for nothing’; Mathematics, and of the accommodation ■ urged an increase in the number of provided by the University for carrying on the mathematical lecturers, and proposed an calculations necessary in that important branch increase in research activity as essential of science. for the future; He continued: ■ argued strongly for the founding of an It may be sufficient for the present to enumerate Institute where faculty members and graduate the following requisites: others might be added students could meet and lectures could be as funds permitted. given: ‘Why should a professor have to grovel A. A very large room for calculating Greatest before a College Bursar when he wants a room Common Measure. To this a small one might G.H.Hardy FRS, Savilian and a decent blackboard?’ Professor of Geometry, be attached for Least Common Multiple: this, 1920-1931, at New however, might he dispensed with. At first, the response to Hardy’s plea was College in 1930 B. A piece of open ground for keeping Roots and modest. All that was granted for the new practising their extraction: it would be ‘Institute’ was a temporary foothold in the newly advisable to keep Square Roots by themselves, constructed extension to the Radcliffe Science as their corners are apt to damage others. Library in 1934; this consisted of a room for each C. A room for reducing Fractions to their Lowest of the four professors, one for a secretary, and Terms. This should be provided with a cellar one for lectures. for keeping the Lowest Terms when found, which might also be available to the general In the 1950s, Oxford’s mathematical community body of Undergraduates, for the purpose of expanded rapidly, following the arrival of the ‘keeping Terms.’ topologist Henry Whitehead as Waynflete D. A large room, which might be darkened, and Charles Coulson FRS, Professor, and in 1953 the Institute moved into a Rouse Ball Professor of fitted up with a magic lantern, for the purpose Victorian house on the corner of Parks Road and Mathematics, 1952- of exhibiting Circulating Decimals in the act of Museum Road, later occupied by other University 1972, Professor of circulation. This might also contain cupboards, Theoretical Chemistry, departments. Eventually, in 1966, a custom-made fitted with glass doors, for keeping the various 1972-1974, and Mathematical Institute was built in St Giles, Scales of Notation. Chairman of Oxfam where it remains to this day.

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The St Giles building had many advantages. Its and graduate students, and before long it was Above left and centre: detailed design was overseen by Charles Coulson, overflowing into a house in St Giles, and then into St Giles, before and after the building of the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics, who one floor after another of Dartington House, a Mathematical Institute insisted that pure and applied mathematics utilitarian block in Little Clarendon Street, where should be under the same roof (unlike at OCIAM and the Centre for Mathematical Biology Above: Mathematical Cambridge at the time), and who understood well found their home. Eventually, other buildings were Institute at 10 Parks Road the needs of his colleagues. In 1966, its large also needed. Below: The new lecture theatres could easily hold an entire year- Mathematical Institute, , and provided acres of blackboard, enough It is now time to move again, and we have been in early 2012 for even the most enthusiastic of lecturers. fortunate to have the opportunity to do so. The Above all, it was close to the centre of Oxford, so University bought the site of the former Radcliffe that undergraduates could attend a lecture and Infirmary, which had become redundant as a cycle back to their colleges for tutorials in the hospital, and the Institute has again had the following hour. opportunity to design from scratch a purpose-built home for mathematics in the centre of Oxford. The Space, however, rapidly became a problem. new building will serve the whole mathematical Funding constraints did not allow for a vision of community: professors, lecturers, and students at future growth, and nor did they allow enough all levels. It will look outwards, and provide proper space to tempt tutors away from their college facilities for the many distinguished visitors who rooms. The building was barely large enough to are drawn to Oxford and who contribute so much house the professors, university lecturers, visitors to our mathematical culture. ■

indeed, but it now forms the basis of much of Sir Michael Dummett the logic used in computer science.

(1925–2011) In the 1960s he worked with mathematicians to build up the study of mathematical logic and this John N. Crossley led to the creation of a lecturership, and ultimately a professorship, in the subject, We are sad to report the death of Sir Michael supported jointly by the two faculties. In 1969, Dummett, Emeritus Wykeham Professor of Logic, following his initial suggestion, the Oxford Joint at the age of 86. He was one of the most Honour School in Mathematics and Philosophy distinguished philosophers of his age and a was set up, and much of his 1970s teaching was profound thinker, straddling both philosophy and for this new joint degree. He was guest of mathematics. For fifty years he contributed to honour at the 40th anniversary celebrations in the development of mathematical logic and 2009 (see Newsletters 8 & 9). philosophy across the Faculty of Mathematics and the Sub-faculty of Philosophy. Michael was also an expert on the mathematical Sir Michael Dummett theory of voting and on the Tarot –as a card Gödel’s work in the 1930s confirmed the game, not for fortune telling. In the wider complexity, rather than the monolithic nature, of society he will be remembered for the practical mathematical truth, and throughout his life application of his philosophical mien in his Michael was obsessed with truth in all its forms. determination to stamp out racial discrimination. He is particularly known for his work on Gottlob Frege, but he also entertained others’ notions of He brought mathematical expertise – self-taught mathematical truth – notably intuitionism, on – and profound philosophical thinking to all his which he wrote a definitive book. When he first endeavours, and inculcated tolerance and lectured on intuitionism the logic was strange carefulness in his students and listeners. ■

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People

one stop being a mathematician on some Terry Lyons FRS, Wallis Professor of Appointments... arbitrarily specified date? Nevertheless, Mathematics, has been appointed Director while the formal stage exists we mark it, of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative We are delighted to welcome the and this year we see the ‘retirement’ of Finance. following new members of the two very long-standing members of the Bryce McLeod FRS, Emeritus Fellow of Mathematical Institute. department, Hilary Priestley, Professor Wadham College, was awarded the 2011 of Mathematics and Fellow of St Anne’s Dmitry Belyaev Naylor Prize of the Mathematical College, and Nick Woodhouse, Professor (Princeton): University Society. Lecturer in Analysis and of Mathematics, Fellow of Wadham Tutorial Fellow at St College and former Chairman of the James Murray FRS, Professor Emeritus of Anne’s College. Mathematical Institute, with 75 years of Mathematical Biology, was awarded the Research interests: service between them. 2011 Award of the interactions between complex analysis, Needless to say, both remain as European Academy of Sciences. academically active as ever within the probability, and statistical physics. Peter Neumann gave the 2011 Enriques Institute and beyond — in Nick’s case, as Lecture in the History and Philosophy of Helen Byrne Deputy Head of the Mathematical, Science in Milan, and the British Society for (Nottingham): Professor Physical and Life Sciences Division. the History of Mathematics – Gresham of Computational Retirement, indeed! Biology and Fellow of College Joint Lecture in London (see Keble College. Research Achievements www.gresham.ac.uk). interests: Multi-scale Barbara Niethammer, Professor of Applied modelling of biological tissues. It has been another excellent year for Mathematics, was awarded a Whitehead awards and appointments: Prize by the London Mathematical Society. David Conlon (Cambridge): University David Acheson, Emeritus Fellow of Jesus Richard Norton (OxMoS) and Kostas Lecturer in Discrete College, was President of the Zygalakis (OCCAM) won prizes in the Leslie Mathematics, Royal Mathematical Association for 2010–11. Fox Competition in Numerical Analysis. Society University Sir John Ball FRS, Sedleian Professor of Jonathan Pila, Reader in Mathematical Research Fellow, and Natural Philosophy, has been elected to Logic, received a Clay Research Award for Tutorial Fellow at Wadham College. the Executive Board of the International his work on modular curves, and was Research interests: extremal and Council for Science. awarded the Senior of the probabilistic combinatorics. Martin Bridson, Whitehead Professor of London Mathematical Society. Minhyong Kim (UCL): Pure Mathematics, gave the 2011 Erwin Raphaël Rouquier, Waynflete Professor of Professor of Number Schrödinger Lecture at the University of Pure Mathematics, has won a Royal Society Theory and Fellow of Vienna. Wolfson Research Merit Award for his work Merton College. on higher categorical and homotopical Research interests: Gui-Qiang Chen, Professor of Partial methods in representation theory. arithmetical algebraic Differential Equations, was awarded the geometry. 2011 SIAG/APDE prize by the Society for Rebecca Shipley (OCIAM) was awarded the Industrial and Applied Mathematics for Early Stage Investigator prize by the Tissue Tom Sanders the best paper on PDEs published in the and Cell Engineering Society. (Cambridge): Senior preceding four years. Research Fellow, Royal Jackie Stedall (Queen's College) has been Society University Simon Donaldson FRS, former Wallis elected Vice-Chair of the executive Research Fellow, and Professor of Mathematics, received a Committee of the International Commission Tutorial Fellow at St knighthood in the New Year Honours, 2012. for the History of Mathematics. Hugh’s College. Research interests: aspects Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi Professor Sir Andrew Wiles FRS has taken up his of algebra, analysis, combinatorics, for the Public Understanding of Science, position as Royal Society Research geometry and number theory. has been appointed President of the Professor at Oxford University. Mathematical Association for 2012–13. Robin Wilson (Pembroke College) has been He recently presented a three-part BBC ‘Retirements’ elected President of the British Society for TV series, The Code. Sam Howison writes: the History of Mathematics. As governments grapple with pension Dominic Joyce and his Oxford team have deficits, ‘retirement’ has become a hazy been awarded a £1.8M ESPRC grant to And finally, the 15th Biennial Oxford / concept. Academics have never taken it conduct research into fundamental Cambridge Applied Maths Competition was that seriously, regarding it more as an algebraic and geometric structures won by Oxford; the Woolly Owl Trophy is asymptotic state – after all, why should underlying multi-dimensional phenomena. now back with OCIAM. ■

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Outreach

Inspiring the next generation of mathematicians

Professor talks to Helen Carasso about her work in Oxford and with the UK Maths Trust

Frances Kirwan became a Fellow of the Institution. It was during this period As well as its Royal Society in 2001 and served as that the UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT) Challenges for teams President of the London Mathematical was set up to coordinate the many and individuals,

Society from 2003 to 2005. Although mathematics competitions that had Olympiads, mentoring Judges Rob by Photo Professor Kirwan’s research is devoted sprung up around the country. and summer schools, to the geometry of multi-dimensional the Trust selects, trains objects, she prefers to frame the Professor Kirwan’s Oxford colleague Dr and supports national problems she tackles by first sketching Peter Neumann, the founding Chairman teams for events such their two-dimensional equivalents – an of the Trust, soon suggested that she as the International approach that she attributes to what might like to become involved with its Mathematical Olympiad, she describes as her ‘visual memory’. work. She declined then, partly because and runs seminars for For more than 25 years at Oxford, the her own children were already taking maths teachers who Frances Kirwan questions she’s addressed have included part in its Challenges, though this are seeking new ways to some derived from the physicists’ meant that she could see at first hand engage and motivate pupils with different unresolved quest for the Grand Unified how effective the Trust was in inspiring levels of ability and interest in the subject. Theory, a mathematical context in which young people to enjoy mathematics. A special new initiative is the European quantum mechanics and relativity can When she felt able to participate, she Girls’ Maths Olympiad, which takes place both be explained. Her work now lies was therefore happy to take over as the for the first time in 2012. closer to her initial interests, which Trust’s third Chair in 2010, succeeding developed when studying for her Prof. Bernard Silverman, former Master As Chair, Frances Kirwan sees her priority doctorate under the supervision of Prof. of St Peter’s College. as ensuring that the UKMT responds to Sir Michael Atiyah in the early 1980s – the demand its success has created: combining geometrical ideas and Fifteen years after it was founded, the One of the next big tasks is to move the intuitions with the principles of algebra. UKMT now involves more than 600,000 Trust from being a new institution to young people from over 4000 something that can continue going Throughout her busy career, she has secondary schools in its events and happily way into the future. made time to share her enthusiasm for competitions. This is achieved through a With that focus in mind the Trust looks set her subject with young mathematicians, substantial group effort, using to continue to play an important part in initially during the 1990s through an volunteers of all ages, from students to developing new generations of outreach programme of Mathematical the retired, who provide huge amounts mathematicians for many years to come Masterclasses run by the Royal of energy, enthusiasm and time. (see www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk). ■

Our aim is to foster a greater In addition to our school visits, we’ve My Marvellous understanding of, and engagement been involved in other events and with, mathematics among students and festivals, including: creating a maths Mathemagicians the wider community, while also making installation at the Barbican’s Radical it more entertaining. By enabling Oxford Nature exhibition, teaming up with the Marcus du Sautoy, students to engage in many of my Oxford Philomusica at the Oxford Simonyi Professor for the outreach activities, I hope to create the Science Festival to reveal the close Pu blic Understanding of next generation of mathematics relationships between Maths and Music, Science communicators. and holding workshops on the streets of Dublin for Irish Maths Week. Our most Founded in 2009, Marcus’s Marvellous Since the beginning of 2010, we’ve exciting project this year involves Mathemagicians are ambassadors for made many visits to schools across the Mathematical Walking Tours of Oxford mathematics who visit schools acro ss UK to deliver activities that I’ve already and the East End of London. Entitled the country to explain the beauty and road-tested in schools, as well as ‘Maths in the City’, our tours highlight the relevance of mathematics in an creating our own workshops for the fundamental role that maths plays engaging way; they are recruited from specialist audiences. We continue to be in society by viewing the urban the graduates and undergraduates hugely popular, with demand far environment in a mathematical way studying mathematics in Oxford. outstripping supply. (see www.mathsinthecity.com). ■

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Epsilons and deltas

Alan Tayler Lecture History of Maths: The Alan Tayler Lecture is held annually new books at the end of Michaelmas Term and is After many years researching Galois' sponsored by the Smith Institute. Alan was writings in Paris, Peter Neumann has a Founding Fellow of St Catherine’s College produced The mathematical writings of and a much-loved tutor, and the lectures, Évariste Galois, containing new which reflect his interests in applied and transcriptions and English translations of, industrial mathematics, attract many of his and extensive commentaries on, Galois' former pupils as well as mathematicians writings. It was published on 25 October and scientists from around the UK. Institute Garden 2011, the bicentenary of Galois' birth. Jacqueline Stedall has also recently The lecturers form a distinguished cohort Parties written an important historical work, From from all over the world. Most have been Cardano's great art to Lagrange's Last year’s Mathematical Institute applied mathematicians, but the theme reflections: filling a gap in the history of Garden Party was held at St Anne’s, and throughout has been how maths is both algebra. Both of these books are was preceded by a lecture on Indra’s exciting and useful. A list of lectures published by the European Mathematical pearls by Prof. . since 1986 can be found at Society (see www.ems.ph.org). www2.maths.ox.ac.uk/ociam/ This year’s event will take place on seminars/atayler/history.shtml. Sunday 8 July, with lectures at 4 pm in On a more popular level, Raymond Flood and Robin Wilson have produced the University Museum lecture theatre, The 2011 Alan Tayler an illustrated coffee-table book, followed by the Garden Party at St lecture was given by The great mathematicians (Arcturus), Anne’s College. The lectures will be John Ockendon. This featuring over 100 mathematicians from given by Prof. Alain Goriely on The was particularly the past. Several of these were, of mathematical mind of Professor poignant as John was course, Oxford mathematicians. Moriarty: all the mathematics you didn’t Alan’s first graduate see in the movie (see page 3) and student, as well as Dr Derek Moulton on Seashell growth being a Fellow of St Catherine’s which and morphology. There will also be an hosts the lecture. John has worked on Orthogonal sudoku update on the new building. industrial applications throughout his Fill in the empty cells in the puzzle career, and his lecture, ranging from below, so that each cell contains one of Pythagoras to Fermat’s theorem, via the numbers 1, 2, . . . , 9 and one of the waves and Bessel functions, illustrated letters a, b, . . . , g. Each number and Maths and cricket his belief in the power of mathematics each letter must appear exactly once in to provide understanding and insight. Oxford Maths each row, column and 3×3 block, and alumna Claire each of the 81 possible number–letter Taylor MBE retired pairs must appear somewhere in the grid. from international (The numbers and letters are said to form cricket in July Mathematical a pair of orthogonal Latin squares.) 2011. She played treasures a key role with the 1 a3 b8 c 2d The Mathematical Institute was pleased bat in making Images © Getty Photo 5 2e c 3 England the top-ranked one-day side in to host an exclusive event in the Divinity 794 3f the world and holds the record for the School and Convocation House in highest one-day score (156) by either sex November, highlighting some of Oxford’s 9 b 5 g at Lord’s. When made a Wisden Cricketer greatest mathematical treasures. h 8d5 3i b c g of the Year in 2009, she said: Featuring a lecture by Dr Jacqueline 2 b6c4h 7 a 8 I don’t know if other people do it, but Stedall (Senior Research Fellow in the when I’m batting at my best, I have a 3D History of Mathematics) and a display of c h awareness of the shape of the field and several rare books and manuscripts, the 8f 5 g2 a where the spaces are ... Maths, I think, event was extremely enjoyable, providing 9f has given me more control and an excellent opportunity to strengthen confidence... It’s good to know that relationships with a select group of Solution to last year’s puzzle: Mods Geometry has its uses. friends and supporters. COUNTABLE (row 5 backwards)

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