De Morgan Association NEWSLETTER
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UCL DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS NEWSLETTER 2016/17 De Morgan Association NEWSLETTER UCL Mathematics Department The department is proud to recruit excellent in which a departments’ teaching and learning undergraduate students who, having typically provision are reviewed every 5-7 years. A team of achieved A*A*A at A-level (with the A*s in assessors visited the department early 2016 and Mathematics and Further Mathematics), are conducted a thorough review of our teaching- among the highest qualified entering UCL. That related practices and met with both students we do so in large numbers, annually recruiting a and staff. The IQR team reported that “overall first year cohort in excess of 200 students to our Mathematics operated effectively in delivering undergraduate programmes, is impressive and high quality undergraduate and postgraduate also makes the department one of the largest programmes as demonstrated by the design of at UCL in terms of numbers of undergraduate its programmes, its responsiveness to industry, students. and the high levels of satisfaction expressed by staff and students.’’ To sustain such large numbers of well-qualified students it is important that the department The IQR highlighted several items of good teaches well. This means many things of practice including our commitment to both course e.g. presenting mathematics clearly and student transition to higher education thoroughly, even inspiringly, in lectures; providing and to widening participation. The Undergraduate timely and useful feedback; offering a broad Colloquium was also singled out for praise. range of mathematically interesting modules In this activity, undergraduate students, with and projects; and providing effective support for support from the department, arrange their own students. Some evidence that we perform these colloquium at which they present topics, often activities well is provided by the National Student very advanced, of mathematical interest to each Survey (NSS), an annual UK-wide survey of final other. year students. In the 2016 NSS the department scored an overall satisfaction rating of 93%, We continue to review and modify our teaching ranking us, among Russell Group mathematics provision. This academic year the department departments, equal 3rd in the UK and the is introducing two new teaching innovations: the top-rated department in London. This was an introduction of Python programming for all first excellent performance and one that all teaching year students and post-exam second year group and administrative staff can be proud of. projects. Further evidence for the department’s We are excited about these developments and commitment to high-quality teaching was believe that both these initiatives will further recently provided by the 2016 Internal Quality develop the communication, programming and Review (IQR). This is a major, UCL run, exercise team-working skills of our graduates. (Continued on page 3) CONTENTS From the Editor Contents This year the annual dinner of the De Morgan UCL Mathematics Department .......................1 Association was held on Friday 10th June De Morgan Association Dinner .......................4 2016 in Senate House, University of London. Fun With Faraday Cages ..................................6 The Guest of Honour was Dr Vicky Neale From Archimedes to Mars by of the University of Oxford. Dr Neale gave a Helicopter..........................................................10 fascinating insight into the collaboration on Inaugural Lectures ..........................................12 the Twin Primes Conjecture facilitated by the Henrici Model ..................................................18 open online forum Polymath. Her topic was Post Doc & Post Graduate News ...................19 particularly appropriate as Professor Andrew Augustus DeMorgan Society...........................20 Granville, one of the world-leading experts on Junior Geometry Seminar/LSGNT .................22 the problem, has recently joined UCL. Professor The Winton Gallery...........................................23 Granville himself presented his inaugural Adventures in the 7th Dimension...................24 lecture this year and Dr Yiannis Petridis’ article Women In Mathematics....................................26 discusses Professor Granville’s work on the Freshers BBQ ..................................................27 Pretentious Approach to Analytic Number Chalkdust .........................................................28 Theory. Mathematics Choir.......................................... 30 Mathematics Staff........................................... 31 Our Associate Editor Bonita Carboo moved Promotions.......................................................32 next door to take up a new position in the New Staff Members/Colloquium.....................33 Department of Physics and Astronomy in Prize Awards.................................................... 34 2016. All those who have worked with Bonita PhD Awards..................................................... 35 in Mathematics were sad to see her move on. Obituaries........................................................ 36 Bonita worked indefatigably as Associate Editor JJ Sylvester Scholarship ...............................38 on the Newsletter, encouraging articles from Alumni…….......................................................39 staff members and student groups and keeping the production of the Newsletter on schedule, with her feeling for design shining through in the artwork and layout. I am deeply indebted to Bonita for her cheerful collaboration. Our new Associate Editor is Kate Fraser, who joined the department over the summer. We hope that you enjoy this first edition with Kate at the helm and encourage you to send us articles and photographs for future editions. Ted Johnson Professor of Mathematics Issue - 24 April 2017 Editor Ted Johnson Associate Editor Kate Fraser 2 UCL, MATHEMATICS AND LONDON (Continued from page 1) I am delighted that in the last year the exceptional teaching efforts of department colleagues have been recognised by the receipt of three prestigious teaching awards. Dr Jonny Evans received a Provost’s Teaching Award, and Matthew Scroggs (Postgraduate Teaching Assistant) and Dr Luciano Rila won Faculty awards for their outstanding teaching. Additionally, in recognition of the importance of teaching in the department, we have inaugurated our own teaching prize to be awarded annually at the De Morgan Dinner. The prize is open to anyone in the department involved in teaching or its support. I am pleased that first recipient was Professor Helen Wilson, for her teaching excellence, curriculum development of applied Robb McDonald at the launch of the Henrici Model mathematics modules and her training of new (pg 14) PhD Teaching Assistants. And not least, are the annual Student Choice Teaching Awards run by UCLU. In 2015-16 Matthew Scroggs, Dr Mark Roberts, Dr Sergei Timoshin, Dr Jonny Evans and regular nominee, and former winner, Dr Isidoros Strouthos were all nominated in various categories of these awards. Professor Robb McDonald Head Of Mathematics Department 3 DE MORGAN ASSOCIATION DINNER De Morgan Association Dinner 2016 For example, mathematicians tackle and solve easier but related problems and this can be help- I was very honoured to be invited to speak at the ful. Some mathematicians choose to think very UCL De Morgan Dinner. hard by themselves, others collaborate. Some of the recent progress towards the Twin Primes I spoke a little about the recent spectacular pro- Conjecture came from Polymath, an open online gress towards proving the famous Twin Primes collaboration in which a range of people came Conjecture, which seemed particularly appro- together to understand the work of Zhang, priate since one of the experts on the problem, Maynard and others, to develop the theoretical Professor Andrew Granville, is at UCL. The arguments, and to create computer code for con- conjecture asserts that there are infinitely many structing important examples in an efficient way. pairs of primes that differ by 2 (pairs such as 3 and 5, or 17 and 19, or 101 and 103, for exam- Looking back at the blogs and wikis where the ple). A sequence of breakthroughs over the last Polymath discussions happened gives an illu- few years started with Zhang’s proof that there minating glimpse into how mathematicians do are infinitely many pairs of primes that differ by mathematics. It was a privilege to be able to at most 70 million, and has since progressed share this story with alumni, students and staff of to showing that there are infinitely many pairs the UCL Department of Mathematics, thank you of primes that differ by at most 246. Not only is very much for inviting me! this a great story about mathematical progress, it also sheds light on some of the ways in which Dr Vicky Neale - Oxford University mathematicians make progress, and this was the main focus of my talk. Dr Vicky Neale speaking at the De Morgan Association Dinner 4 DE MORGAN ASSOCIATION DINNER 2017 De Morgan Association Dinner Friday 9 June 2017 Senate House Sherry at 6.45pm, Dinner at 7.30pm All those on the UCL Alumni database will be sent an invitation to the next De Morgan Association Dinner. Please send us addresses of anyone else who may want to receive an invitation and remember to keep the Department and Alumni Relations Office of UCL informed of any changes to your address. 5 FUN WITH FARADAY CAGES - DR DAVID HEWETT Fun with Faraday cages The ‘Faraday cage effect’