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A Dame and Four Knights Maths News 2014 [f]_Maths newsletter 1 10/04/2014 10:41 Page 2 Oxford Mathematical Institute Spring 2014, Number 12 Newsletter We hope that you enjoy this annual Newsletter. A Dame and We are interested to receive your comments, and also contributions for future Newsletters. Four Knights Please contact the editor, Robin Wilson, c/o We were delighted to learn that Professor Frances Kirwan FRS was [email protected] appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours list for services to mathematics. This is a wonderful Design & production by Baseline Arts recognition of her stature in the mathematics community, of her many contributions in research, and of her leadership of the London Mathematical Society and the UK Mathematics Trust. She joins Oxford’s four mathematical knights: Sir John Ball, Sir Roger Penrose, Sir Martin Taylor and Sir Andrew Wiles. Frances Kirwan studied in Oxford for her D. Phil. Dame Mary), who studied at St Hugh’s and became in algebraic and symplectic geometry under the an Oxford graduate student of G. H. Hardy. supervision of Prof. Michael Atiyah. Since 1986 she has been a Fellow in Mathematics at Balliol Frances is also Chair of the UK Mathematics College, and in 1996 became an Oxford Trust, which every year has more than half a University Professor of Mathematics. million young people from over 4000 secondary schools involved in its events and competitions In 2001 she was elected to a Fellowship of the (see the feature article in Newsletter 10). Royal Society, and from 2004 to 2005 was Dame Frances with the President of the London Mathematical Society Her comment on the appointment was: I am of four knights: Sir John Ball, (LMS), the second-youngest in the Society’s course very pleased, but if anyone I know Sir Martin Taylor, Sir Roger Penrose and history and only the second woman to hold that addresses me as Dame Frances I will assume Sir Andrew Wiles. position – the first was Mary Cartwright (later that they are seriously annoyed with me ... n ISSUE 11 / 1 Maths News 2014 [f]_Maths newsletter 1 10/04/2014 10:41 Page 3 History THE FIRST SAVILIAN CHAIRS History of In 1619, Sir Henry Savile, Warden of Merton, deploring the terrible state of Oxford Mathematics Oxford mathematics, founded the Savilian Professorships of Geometry and Robin Wilson and Raymond Flood Astronomy. The first geometry professor was Henry Briggs, who improved The opening of the Andrew Wiles mathematician of the time, who wrote: Napier’s newly invented logarithms, Building is but the latest event in Mathematics reveals every genuine calculating by hand extensive tables of eight centuries of mathematical truth, for it knows every hidden secret. base-10 logs to fourteen decimal activity in Oxford. Here we outline He became Archbishop of Canterbury in places. The Sedleian Chair of Natural the eventful story. 1349, but died of the Black Death soon Philosophy was founded in 1621. after. EARLY DAYS After the Civil War, the mathematical In 1214 Oxford University elected its first An unexpected name that arises here is scene moved to Wadham College. In Chancellor, Bishop Robert Grosseteste, Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote on 1648 Warden John Wilkins gathered a founder of the tradition of scientific mathematical instruments. His 1393 group of brilliant men, the ‘Oxford thought in medieval Oxford. Particularly Treatise on the Astrolabe was one of Philosophical Society’, to discuss interested in geometry, he wrote: the earliest science books in English. ‘philosophicall experiments’. Wilkins’s The usefulness of considering lines, group included John Wallis (Savilian angles and figures is the greatest, Oxford’s students arrived in their early Professor of Geometry for 54 years), because it is impossible to understand teens and were assigned tutors who Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke and natural philosophy without them. By were responsible for their moral Christopher Wren (Savilian Professor of the power of geometry, the careful behaviour. The curriculum comprised the Astronomy). Members of this group observer of natural things can give seven liberal arts: the trivium, a 4-year founded the Royal Society in London. the causes of all natural effects. course on grammar, rhetoric and logic , followed by the 3-year quadrivium, the Wallis’s successor as Savilian Professor Grosseteste’s most famous admirer was Greek mathematical arts of arithmetic, of Geometry was Edmond Halley. While Roger Bacon, whose Folly Bridge music, astronomy and geometry. still an undergraduate he sailed to St observatory became a place of Helena to catalogue the Southern stars. pilgrimage for scientists. Centuries later, Following the invention of printing, a Among his achievements were cajoling Samuel Pepys wrote: press was set up, which eventually Newton to write Principia Mathematica, So to Friar Bacon’s study: I up and became the Oxford University Press. The becoming Astronomer Royal, and saw it, and gave the man a shilling. first mathematical book was the 1520 predicting the return of the comet that Oxford mighty fine place. Compotus Manualis, which showed how now bears his name. to calculate the date of Easter on one’s fingers. Other notable books by Oxford THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES authors appeared around this time. Throughout the 18th century Newtonian Cuthbert Tonstall’s De Arte Supputandi philosophy flourished in the Old was the first major arithmetic text to be Ashmolean Building, now the Museum of published in England, while Robert the History of Science, in Broad Street. Recorde’s 1557 algebra text The The first public museum in England, it Whetstone of Witte, contained the first also contained the first science teaching appearance of our equals sign – two rooms and teaching laboratory. Many parallel lines ‘bicause noe. 2. thynges, scientific lectures were given there by Roger Bacon’s observatory. can be moare equalle’. the Savilian professors, one of whom, Thomas Hornsby, was responsible for By the early 14th century, scholars were the Radcliffe Observatory, then Europe’s organising themselves into colleges. best-equipped astronomical observatory Merton College soon became pre-eminent and now part of Green Templeton College. in scientific studies, and the Merton Following another decline in the School became famous throughout University’s fortunes, changes came in Europe, as its members tried to quantify In 1570 Henry Billingsley, a former the 19th century, when science degrees natural phenomena, such as heat, light Oxford student who became Lord Mayor were introduced, examinations included and colour. Most important was Thomas of London, published the first English written papers, and the University Bradwardine, the greatest English edition of Euclid’s Elements. Museum was built. 2 / OXFORD MATHEMATICAL INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER . SPRING 2014 . ISSUE 12 Maths News 2014 [f]_Maths newsletter 1 10/04/2014 10:41 Page 4 Head of Department’s letter Head of Department’s letter Sam Howison I am not going to say much about the large debts, it is more crucial than ever first this did not work – two discerning Andrew Wiles building this year: you that we can support them. I think our pairs nested on the window sills of the have already had to put up with too alumni can make a real difference here, Whitehead Professor of Mathematics and much from me on this topic in the past. by combining to fund Alumni Graduate the Savilian Professor of Geometry – but Let me simply say that it is wonderful, Scholarships. A number of you have last week Nobby was seen near fabulous, transformative – and you must already contributed generously, and if Somerville breakfasting on something come to see it. But now that the move others would like to join in, there is a grey and fluffy ... is over, we’re looking at the challenges dedicated page on our website. Please to come. think hard about making a regular Finally, let me quote from recent student contribution, however modest. feedback forms concerning two of our High among these is the issue of star lecturers, Peter Neumann and funding for doctoral students. Some of Turning now to lighter matters, pigeons Richard Earl: ‘Dr Neumann is such a the brightest young mathematicians in have also been on our minds. Our window babe [from a student young enough to the world want to do their D.Phil. here ledges are tempting nesting sites, so last be his grandchild] – this guy has swag!’ but we can only fund a small proportion summer we engaged the services of and ‘Dr Earl is a lad! I used to think I of them. And now that UK students (as Nobby the Harris hawk to fly around could learn it all from books. Boy was I well as others) finish their studies with regularly and deter the interlopers. At wrong!’ Says it all, really. n and the new Waynflete Chair in Pure mathematicians, Michael Atiyah, Simon Mathematics. Donaldson and Daniel Quillen, were awarded Fields Medals, the mathematical A major boost to Oxford’s mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize. was G. H. Hardy’s appointment to the geometry chair. Mainly remembered as a Sir Roger Penrose is a major Cambridge man, he spent eleven fruitful international figure in cosmology and years in Oxford, publishing over 100 astrophysics, while Sir Andrew Wiles, papers and establishing a world-famous who proved ‘Fermat’s last theorem’, was The University Museum, 1860. school in analysis and number theory. a former Merton undergraduate who has Another important influence was returned to Oxford after many years in There were three notable Savilian Waynflete professor Henry Whitehead, the USA (see page 7). Professors of Geometry at this time: whose school of topology attracted n Baden Powell wrote texts on scholars from around the world; a keen pig Recent expansion in Oxford’s mathematical geometry and calculus and was a farmer, he claimed to derive mathematical activity has been spectacular.
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