Maths News 2010 (4a):Maths newsletter 1 10/5/10 08:40 Page 2

Oxford Mathematical Institute Spring 2010, Number 8 Newsletter

We hope that you enjoy receiving this annual Newsletter. We are interested A year of achievement to receive your comments, and also contributions for future Newsletters.

Please write to the editor: Robin Wilson MI Newsletter Mathematical Institute 24–29 St Giles Oxford OX1 3LB, or send e-mails to him, c/o [email protected]

Design & production by Baseline Arts Photo by Rob Judges Rob by Photo University) (Princeton Applewhite Denise by Photo Three mathematical knights: Sir John Ball, Sir Martin Taylor and Sir Andrew Wiles

Although Oxford regularly receive national and international recognition for their wide-ranging achievements, this past year has been particularly successful. Among those most worthy of note are the following.

I Two distinguished number theorists are I Raphaël Rouquier, Waynflete Professor of Pure returning to Oxford, both to Merton College: Mathematics, has been awarded the Elie Cartan Sir Martin Taylor, FRS, Vice-President of the Prize by the French Academy of Sciences. Royal Society, has been appointed Warden of Merton from October 2010, and Sir Andrew I Sir Roger Penrose, former Rouse Ball Professor Raphaël Rouquier Wiles has been appointed as a Royal Society of , shared this year’s 2010 Anniversary Research Professor at the Trotter Prize at Texas A&M University, USA. Mathematical Institute from July 2011. I Endre Süli, Professor of , I The Royal Society has awarded its prestigious has been elected a Foreign Member of the Sylvester Medal to Sir John Ball, Oxford’s Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, and its Michael Faraday Prize, the premier award I This year the London Mathematical Society for science communication in the UK, to has awarded several of its prizes to Oxford , Simonyi Professor for the mathematicians. Roger Heath-Brown Public Understanding of Science. () won the prestigious Pólya Marcus du Sautoy Prize, Philip Maini (mathematical biology) I Marcus du Sautoy was also awarded an OBE was awarded the Naylor Prize and Lectureship in the New Year honours list, and received in Applied Mathematics, and a Whitehead the 2010 Communications Award by the Prize was presented to Cornelia Drutu. American Joint Policy Board for Mathematics for his contributions to the public I No fewer than six members of the Institute understanding of mathematics. (Roger Heath-Brown, Marc Lackenby, Philip Maini, Oliver Riordan, Gregory I Nick Trefethen, Professor of Numerical Seregin, and Xunyu Zhou) have accepted Analysis, has been appointed President-elect invitations to speak at this summer’s Endre Süli of SIAM, the international Society for International Congress of Mathematicians in Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Hyderabad, India. I

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Applied mathematics

OCIAM comes of age Hilary Ockendon Emeritus Fellow of Somerville College

Twenty-one years ago, in April 1989, a small group of applied mathematicians moved out of the Mathematical Institute and into Dartington House and OCIAM (Oxford Centre for Industrial & Applied OCIAM members led by Alan Tayler (wearing tie) outside the Dartington House Common Mathematics) was born. Alan Tayler was Room, Summer 1992. its first Director and he made a virtue out of this move by creating a centre with a that were started in Oxford in 1968; these are growing up fast and may soon want to great sense of identity and an unreason - meetings now happen annually in at least spread their wings. Mathematics for ably high worldwide reputation. eleven countries and a deputation from Medicine has become a big part of what OCIAM will attend many of them. The OCIAM does and much of this work is in Mathematicians are traditionally fuelled by stream of problems from industry that collaboration with its older sister, the coffee, and coffee-time was, and still is, require mathematical attention shows no Centre for Mathematical Biology. Both the pivotal daily event which cements the sign of drying up, but there are now many Centres are now based in Dartington House OCIAM spirit. Faculty (both current and more areas where maths is being applied. and postdocs regularly move from one to emeritus), postdocs, visitors, and students the other. And then there is the precocious all meet there to discuss an amazing Perhaps the most dramatic story is the child OCCAM (Oxford Collaborative Centre range of topics from the most esoteric growth of mathematical finance which for Applied Mathematics) which found a mathematics to when to hold the next developed gradually within OCIAM and is generous benefactor in the King Abdullah party. Other regular events are the Friday now an independent research group in University of Science and Technology in Workshops (where problems from industry Mathematical and Computational Finance. Saudi Arabia and left home rather abruptly. or other departments are subject to This Centre, which was originally set up by Fortunately, OCCAM is based just up the intense discussion), the Thursday seminar Sam Howison (see page 5), now contains road and a new grown-up relationship on 'Differential Equations and Applications' eleven faculty members and is comparable between it and its parent is developing. and the Junior Applied Mathematics in size to OCIAM. If OCIAM is the 'parent' Seminars (to which no faculty are allowed) centre which nurtures new applications in OCIAM has had 4 Directors – or 5, if you which have been held fortnightly in term their youth, then Mathematical Finance is count John Ockendon's tenure of the post time since at least 1992. the first child to have grown up and left for 25 minutes before he resigned over a home – but there are others, such as the room allocation issue! (The issue was OCIAM was created on the back of the Mathematical Geoscience Group and the subsequently resolved and Hilary Ockendon success of the Study Groups with Industry Applied Dynamical Systems Group, which stepped into the Director's shoes while John became Research Director). The current Director, Jon Chapman, was one of the first students in OCIAM and also held a Research Fellowship there, so he is well imbued with the OCIAM spirit. However, OCIAM has recently gained five new faculty appointments, and benign influences from Caltech, Munich, Nottingham, and Cambridge are beginning to be felt.

Alan Tayler died in 1995, but he would have been pleased to see how OCIAM has developed since then. The basic principles that he laid down – to do collaborative research, to train students, and to act as a global focus for industrial mathematics

Photo by Peter Hudston Peter by Photo – still hold good and the future of OCIAM OCIAM members today. seems assured. I

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Institute news Mathematical Institute news Nick Woodhouse Chairman of the Mathematical Institute

Where is the new building? More has that the project is moving forward. The happened over the past year or so than is site has been cleared and levelled ready apparent from a casual glance at the now for construction to begin. In November, empty space between the old Radcliffe a formal planning application was infirmary building and the Tower of the submitted that seems likely to be Winds. As work on the design has supported by the City’s officers; we continued, there have been detailed hope to have a positive outcome soon. discussions with the City of Oxford and Then we move to RIBA ‘stage F’, which with English Heritage. The latter have a involves detailed technical design work match the University’s own contribution. strong interest in the project because of and negotiations with contractors. We’ve had some generous gifts already the site’s very sensitive location between and the development campaign will two listed buildings. The process has been All this is happening in the context of gather pace over the coming months. frustrating at times, but we all recognise an increasingly chilly climate for the Your support will be important in the need to satisfy the intricate constraints funding of higher , and helping us to achieve our goals. You on a building that must meet the needs of concern about what may happen after can find out more by visiting the Oxford mathematics community, and the election. Oxford is in a stronger www.maths.ox.ac.uk/giving or the also be conspicuous to visitors to Oxford in financial position than many UK University’s Oxford Thinking page at marking the gateway to University territory universities, not least because of its www.ox.ac.uk/campaign. as they travel down the Woodstock income from the University Press. Road towards St Giles. The Institute has But it is not immune. While the new That aside, much else has happened been given a fantastic site, but it is one Mathematical Institute building heads over the past year, as outlined on on which many eyes are focussed. the University’s list of capital priorities page 1. These achievements represent (along with the New Bodleian), it has an extraordinary recognition of the It has been a long process with some become more important than ever to strength and breadth of mathematical false starts, but we are now optimistic raise external funding for the project to research in Oxford. I Numerical Analysis on the move Andy Wathen Reader in Numerical Analysis

There are plans and then there’s planning! hour chemist was too small, and the For several years it was planned to move bottom floor of the Gibson Building was the Numerical Analysis research group from still occupied by temporarily displaced the Computing Lab to the Maths Institute; Ashmolean staff, but the ‘bus stop’ was the natural time for this move would have big enough and available! been the opening of the planned new Mathematics building on the Radcliffe site, So in 0th week of Michaelmas term the

but even the best laid plans… research group bade farewell to the Leggett Jo by Photo Computing Lab and moved Alas, having taken over this space from So, with the Division and the University administratively to the Maths Department the University's Refugee Studies unit – wanting us to move, the Mathematics and physically to 3 Worcester Street, now in a purpose-built permanent home Department keen to welcome us, and the right next to the Gloucester Green bus – we’re contemplating a further physical Computing Laboratory expecting to take station – hence the ‘bus stop’. The move move at the end of this academic year over our accommodation on Keble Road went remarkably smoothly and we were to the recently vacated ground floor for their ever-expanding IT research, up and running again very quickly. It’s of the Gibson Building (where we will plans were hatched for a temporary move still variable as to whether you’re offered at least be nearer to some of our of offices to coincide with the group's ‘Cityline’ or ‘London Tube’ as well as mathematical colleagues). Eventually permanent move to the Mathematics ‘maths’ when connecting to the wifi – our nomadic status should end and Department. There being no available it depends which buses have pulled up at we’ll be part of the great Mathematics space in any existing Maths building, new the back – but most aspects of our unification on the Radcliffe site – we locations were considered: above the 24- environment are positive! look forward to this as much as any! I

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Profile

Professor Bryan Birch, FRS interviewed by Helen Carasso

Bryan Birch, From Cambridge, Bryan moved to Emeritus Fellow Manchester, where he remained until of Brasenose joining Oxford as a Reader at Brasenose College, taught at College in 1966. Of the two collegiate Oxford from 1966 universities he notes: to 1998 and was It has been traditional in Cambridge for appointed the applied mathematicians and the Professor of Arithmetic in 1978. pure mathematicians not to talk to one A distinguished number theorist, he another… in Oxford the Institute is a was awarded the London single department of mathematics, and Mathematical Society’s De Morgan it is important to us that there are no Medal in 2007. clear divisions between different branches of the subject. in Cambridge, USA, selected this Not only is Bryan Birch a Pure conjecture as one of its seven , but he is also a pure Twelve years after his move to Oxford, his ‘millennium problems’, offering a $1m mathematician – someone so inspired by work was recognised by an ad hominem prize for its solution.) This important the subject that it has been the focus of professorship – for which he chose the work also symbolises the role that his interest for over 60 years. And that title ‘Professor of Arithmetic’, partly in computers were increasingly to play in interest is about much more than simply homage to Cassels who’d chosen the title enabling number theorists to address studying what others have done before: ‘Reader in Arithmetic’ years earlier. It was new types of problems that were, I realised quite quickly that it is a particular pleasure to Bryan that on his according to Bryan, ‘inconceivable’ to inappropriate to ‘learn’ mathematics; retirement his post was replaced by an earlier generations of mathematicians. mathematics is about proof, which established chair in mathematics to which means a proper understanding of Roger Heath-Brown was elected. There’s no doubt that Bryan Birch takes reasons for its propositions to be true. great delight in this work for its own It was in his student years in sake, but he was also aware of a wider When it came to applying to university, Cambridge, though, that Bryan Birch significance: Trinity College Cambridge was the met and collaborated with the At that time, there was practically natural choice. At age 8, by which time colleague with whom he was to conduct nothing known about the analytic theory he already aspired to be a math- the work for which he is best known of such functions, so we had ematician, he had sought advice on what today. Peter Swinnerton-Dyer had been to find out everything for ourselves. he needed to do in order to follow this involved in the Computing Laboratory in There turned out to be an incredibly career, and was told that he must Cambridge from its earliest days, and beautiful theory that is still incomplete. ‘become a Fellow of Trinity’. Although the two mathematicians realised that We had the joy of working in a the young schoolboy was not entirely they could put this new resource to completely fresh area of beautiful sure what this meant, he gradually work to increase their understanding of mathematics, so beautiful that it was found out and went on to win an elliptic curves – testing for any certain to be important. undergraduate scholarship there. correlation between the local behaviour (over finite fields) and the global Over the half- in which he has Bryan quickly identified a passion for behaviour (over the rational numbers). worked in this field, its applications have number theory, completing his become increasingly significant in our doctorate on the of numbers They found a precise correspondence everyday lives – whether incorporating under the supervision of J. W. S. Cassels, that could be formulated in terms of the security into on-line banking systems or three years after completing his BA. zeta functions of the curves, and from protecting the digital signals on which On the strength of this he was elected these results went on to formulate the mobile phones depend. But we have to a Trinity Prize Fellowship, thus Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, which access to such developments only achieving his childhood ambition at remains his proudest career achievement; because, for decades, number theorists the age of just 25. A year’s postdoc although it is known to hold true in such as Bryan Birch pursued their subject at Princeton followed, before he many specific cases, it remains unproved, for its interest and beauty alone, returned to Cambridge as a Fellow of 45 years after it was first formally stated. relishing the challenges of the tough Churchill College. (In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute mathematical problems involved. I

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Interview

Interview with/by Professor Sam Howison

The Editor asked Sam Howison, them. It's a struggle, but my Vice-Chairman of the Mathematical economist co-author thinks it's Institute, to arrange to be worth it. I'm also working on a interviewed for the Newsletter. model for carbon emissions One thing intervened, then another, markets. so that he (SH) ended up SH: Sounds interesting. What's the interviewing himself (SDH): punchline? SDH: Most models in finance assume SH: Thank you for talking with me that your own trading doesn't today… affect the price, or if it does then SDH: Sorry to interrupt, but do you the impact is small. The whole often talk to yourself? point of the cap-and-trade SH: As a matter of fact I do approach is that the cost of sometimes, when I'm working. If carbon is meant to affect what I'm trying to pin down an elusive people do, through the price of mathematical argument it permits to produce CO2. This sometimes helps to ask myself feedback makes the problem questions out loud. There's nonlinear, and more difficult something about the physicality to solve. of speaking aloud, perhaps that it SH: Speaking of research, you were is a single voice demanding on the RAE panel. What was answers, that makes me focus. that like? Anyway, I'm asking the questions. SDH: The Research Assessment Exercise While we're on the subject, what was the process whereby panels of else do you find helps your experts were asked to assess research? research submitted by all the SDH: Walking definitely does something universities in Britain. I was on the

to loosen the brain – and sleeping applied maths panel and it Preston Ruth by Photo on a problem often helps. I don't involved many meetings and a hell Sam Howison with papers for the 2008 think you can just dip into a of a lot of reading: the photo Research Assessment Exercise. problem and expect to make shows it all before it went to the progress: you won't get anywhere shredder when I'd finished. The unless you live with it and worry process was interesting but SDH: Glib answer: yes, or I wouldn't be about it. Walking is perfect for the exhausting as it all had to be done doing it. (I have to say that!) We conscious part of that process and quite quickly. I learned a lot but I certainly have a glorious past: tell sleeping for the unconscious part. signed such fierce confidentiality me another discipline where work The other thing that really helps is agreements that I can't tell you done nearly 2500 years ago is still to discuss things with another anything about it, or HEFCE will fresh and alive and taught to person, and I am very lucky to send the Dementors after me! undergraduates. Oh, all right then, have such an open-minded and SH: What do you like best about philosophy. But as for the future, talented set of colleagues to do your job? the computer has changed this with. SDH: It's a brilliant job, working in one everything. All sorts of scientists SH: What are you working on at the of the best maths departments in can formulate problems in moment? the world. We have wonderful mathematical terms and hope to SDH: Various things. One's a game students and colleagues, and a make progress. So I see openings theory problem from economics, a fantastic support staff. When I'm for mathematics everywhere, from simple model for competition doing research, that's the best engineering to criminology and between two agents who produce thing; when I'm teaching, that from finance to geology. Some of a good and sell it into a market. becomes the best; and when I'm these areas will need mathematics The mathematical upshot is a pair administrating, research and that hasn't yet been developed. of horrible nonlinear partial teaching are both the best. There's a lot more to come yet. differential equations which are SH: Do you think mathematics has a SH: Sam Howison, thank you very resisting most attempts to solve future as well as a past? much. I

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People

Appointments... Being a

Gui-Qiang G. Chen Thaleia Postgraduate (Northwestern Zariphopoulou University, USA) (University of Texas, and a Junior to a University USA) to the Man Professorship in the Professorship of Research Analysis of Partial Quantitative Finance Differential Equations and a Fellowship and a Studentship at Christ Church. Fellow at Keble College. Research interests: Research interests: quantitative finance, David Craven, Junior Research Fellow PDEs, non-linear analysis, and their portfolio management, and stochastic at Christ Church, and formerly a connections with other areas of optimisation. graduate student at St John's College mathematics and the sciences. ...and farewells Alain Goriely (University of Arizona) We’re sorry to say to the Prof essorship of goodbye to Brian Mathematical Modelling Stewart (Exeter), and a Fellowship at St former Chairman of Catherine’s College. the Maths Faculty and Research interests: mathematical Faculty Teaching modelling of physical, biological, and Adviser, and Robin engineering systems, non-linear dynamics, Wilson (Keble), Editor integrability theory, and solid mechanics. of this Newsletter, who ‘retired’ last summer; Colin Macdonald Brian continues to give (UCLA, USA) to a lectures in the Institute University Lecturership and Robin is now teaching for Pembroke in Numerical The life of an Oxford postgraduate College. We’re also sorry to say goodbye Methodologies and a consists of being snowed under with to Piotr Chru´sciel, who has left to take Fellowship at Oriel work during term, and having long up a Chair in Vienna. I College. Research interests: numerical weeks with nothing very important to analysis, scientific computing, numerical do in the vacations. During term there solutions of PDEs on general surfaces, MSc in Mathematical are seminars to attend, tutorials to give, and time stepping. Finance work to mark, and supervisions with The MSc in Mathematical Finance your doctoral adviser, as well as the programme is structured to allow those social side, with the myriad college (University of Bristol) working full-time to develop expertise events and functions that mark to a Readership in in mathematical finance without Oxbridge out from other universities. Mathematical compromising their professional work. Outside term, nothing. and a Fellowship at The course covers all the areas of Wolfson College. mathematical finance currently When you start a D.Phil., the numbers Research interests: model-theoretic deployed in financial institutions, and involved are too large to understand methods in diophantine problems. also enables students to focus on topics fully: you have 36 or more months to most relevant to them. The course has write a thesis of 100–200 pages, and Holger Wendland been revised and restructured in the you'll have to read many hundreds of (University of Sussex) wake of the global financial crisis, and pages of articles and books before you to a University there is a new module specifically on can even start research on a subject Lecturership in quantitative risk management. In about which you probably understand Numerical Analysis and addition to presenting classical risk only the title. It can become a little a Fellowship at Exeter management tools, it scrutinises demoralizing at the end of your first College. Research interests: numerical currently employed methodologies on year, having spent many hours reading analysis and scientific computing, mesh- the backdrop of recent risk and, while understanding more, feeling free methods for PDEs, radial basis management failures, and proposes no closer to actually doing research – functions, and fluid-structure-interaction. new directions. and research is what being a

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People

Claire Taylor, MBE, cricketer

postgraduate is supposed to be about. By the end of your second year, you’re usually well on your way to having at least some idea what you are doing, and the title of your thesis at least might be more specific, even if there’s nothing to go into the thesis itself; mine started out as A topic in representation theory, for example.

The third year is largely spent writing the thesis, and the fourth year rewriting it. With the Research Councils’ acknowledgement that doctoral studies are taking longer (and an increase of 1 funding to 3 /2 years), the time when

you have to decide whether you need Photo © Getty Images to eat or stay warm has been consequently pushed back. Claire Taylor studied mathematics at or the River Wey, or some sprint drills The Queen’s College, but is now indoors, depending on the weather. If being a D.Phil. student is like renowned as an international The net session is divided into three tightrope walking, then being a Junior cricketer. Here she describes a typical sections. First some technical work, Research Fellow is like having the safety day from the past exciting year. building on previous sessions to correct net removed. As a student you have a a weakness or practise a new shot. supervisor who can guide your I’m a management consultant for an Then on to some tactical practice to fit endeavours to something more fruitful; organisation called SUMS Consulting, the new skill into my game plan. The if you don't fall off the tightrope then based at Reading University. We work last half of the session is spent on everything is fine. As a JRF, the exclusively within the higher education game scenarios. This piece of the elephant in the room is that you are on sector on the administrative aspects of puzzle is one of the things I enjoy your own, rather than having a running universities. The work is project most about . How are we going postdoctoral position and working on a based and could vary from looking at to win the game from here? project with others. When crossing from provision of occupational health postgrad to JRF, which can take place in services to optimising academic It all became real in the semi-final of a single day, you go from not being teaching timetables. Although I do a the Twenty20 World Cup at the Oval in expected to know very much to being fair amount of benchmarking for my June 2009. Australia had made 164 and assumed to have expert knowledge in projects and those of colleagues, I England were 43-2 in the 7th over. several fields. wouldn’t say I use any of the maths I was with and we that I learnt at Oxford. What’s more had a daunting chase on our hands. Apart from getting paid more, there’s important to me is the ability to analyse The time I’d spent in the nets working little difference between being a a situation, find solutions, and appraise on hitting 10 runs an over, the physical postgraduate and a JRF. You attend those solutions. work I’d done to ensure that I could the same seminars – though you’re cope with the running, and the expected to nod sagely more often – I work on a part-time basis, so visualisation of fielders all came to there are still papers to read and depending on what sort of training fruition as England secured an 8- tutorials to give (if you want to), commitments I have on a particular day, victory and a place in the final at Lord’s more travelling to present seminars I’ll work until 3 or 4 p.m. and then head against . and attend conferences, and college off for training. Once a week, I go to functions to attend, but these are more Guildford for an indoor net session with It’s been an amazing year for the team ‘civilised’. This job is constantly varying, the England Women’s Cricket Coach. and me; two World Cup wins, intensely challenging, involves ‘arduous' This is the most important hour and a International Player of the Year and foreign travel, allows you to set your half of my week. To prepare, I’ll do Wisden Cricketer of the Year accolades own holidays, and be your own boss. some physical fitness work first: maybe and, to top it all, the honour of an It’s an amazing experience. I a run alongside the Basingstoke Canal MBE. I

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Events MP40 – the 40th Anniversary

of Maths and Philosophy Daniel Drury by Photo Helen Carasso, St Anne’s 1976

It was a strange feeling when, in early needed to coordinate our activities with 2008, I found myself sitting around a our colleagues at the Maths Institute. table with three senior academics Another priority was to contact as many Mathematical Institute (Hilary Priestley, Dan Isaacson and Maths Philosophy graduates as possible Jochen Koenigsmann) as a member of and encourage them to spread the Garden Parties the planning committee for the 40th word to any colleagues no longer in Last year’s Mathematical Institute anniversary celebrations of Oxford’s touch with the University. Garden Party was held at St Anne’s, and Mathematics and Philosophy degree, was preceded by lectures on Lattices particularly as two of them taught on By the weekend itself, more than 60 and logic by Prof. , and How the course when I was an Maths Philosophers – former students and the logic of exponentiation became undergraduate in the 1970s. Although current and past staff – had joined our understood by Prof. Angus Macintyre, as I’d been asked to join this esteemed celebrations to mark 40 years of a degree part of the MP40 event (see left). group as I‘ve spent most of my working that can trace its epistemological roots life in communications and public back to ancient times. Every decade of our This year’s event will take place on relations, I was also there to represent course was represented – including some Saturday 17th July, with lectures at the alumni contingent, so found myself of the first Maths Philosophy 4 pm in the Martin Wood Lecture wearing two metaphorical hats. undergraduates and tutors from the late Theatre, Clarendon Building, followed by 1960s. There was perhaps a nostalgic the Garden Party at St Anne’s. The While the academic members of our feeling of slight superiority when some lectures will be given by Professors Chris small group were agreeing the briefing mathematicians with whom we shared the Budd on Maths in and out of the zoo for the main speakers – the first two Saturday afternoon lectures were left and Paul Bressloff on The mathematics holders of the Chair of Mathematical puzzled by Dana Scott’s explanation of of visual hallucinations. Logic, Dana Scott and Angus Macintyre some recent thinking on the role of – and the programme of lectures that lattices in the understanding of logical alumni would be giving on the second theories and Angus Macintyre’s day of the reunion event, I was explanation of how the logic of Sudoku puzzle corner exploring the University archives to exponentiation became understood, but Fill in the empty cells in the puzzle establish the background to the launch we were all quickly back on the same below, so that each of the nine letters of the Maths Philosophy degree from a wavelength again at the tea that followed! below the puzzle appears just once in mass of microfiched committee papers, each row, column and 3 × 3 box, and a By the evening our MP40 celebrations handwritten notes and extracts from the mathematical word will appear in one of ‘proper’ were well under way – and we University Gazette. the rows or columns: the hidden word were delighted to have all three holders may appear forwards or backwards, of the Chair of dining As our MP40 celebrations on 4/5 July down or up. 2009 were planned to dovetail with the with early Oxford advocates for establishing the course, graduates from annual Mathematics Garden Party, we OO X the academic world and beyond, and tutors whose commitment to Maths and N YIVO Philosophy has enabled the course to X N grow over the years to the point where it T I Y is now firmly established at the CT University. With reminiscences to be shared and recent news to exchange over X O E dinner, academic discussions were saved O V for the lectures in the Philosophy Faculty Y N VTC the following day. Whatever the routes E N each of us had taken since reading Mathematics and Philosophy, there was a C E I N O T V X Y strong shared tradition of reason, rationality and lively inquiry to be found Solution to last year’s puzzle: I Photo by Daniel Drury by Photo among us all. Here’s to MP50! ALGORITHM (row 3 backwards)

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