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 mathematicians 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 Applied Mathematics, 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 Numerical Analysis, 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 Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi Professor for the mathematicians. Roger Heath-Brown Public Understanding of Science. (number theory) 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 OXFORD MATHEMATICAL INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER . SPRING 2010 . ISSUE 8 / 1 Maths News 2010 (4a):Maths newsletter 1 10/5/10 08:40 Page 3 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 2 / OXFORD MATHEMATICAL INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER . SPRING 2010 . ISSUE 8 Maths News 2010 (4a):Maths newsletter 1 10/5/10 08:40 Page 4 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 education, 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