Podcast People 2008/9

The following people have contributed to the Travels in a Mathematical World Podcast this year:

Philip Maini (mathematical biology), Noel-Ann Bradshaw (maths history; evolutionary algorithms for finance), Joanna Hartley (public transport modelling), Sarah Shepherd (maths news), Nira Chamberlain (mathematical modelling projects), Neil Goldwasser (dyslexia support and adult numeracy), Adrian Bowyer (his career part 1 & part 2), Terry Lyons (Stochastic Analysis), Paul Shepherd (parametric models for architecture; decimation and subdivision of 3D models), Chris Bailey (maths of conservation and restoration), Jane Wess (maths collection at the Science Museum), Choi-Hong Lai (fluid dynamics), Mike Maher (transport modelling), John Sharp (maths & art), Chris Budd (industrial mathematics), Oliver Jensen (applied mathematics), Matt Parker (maths communication), David Fearn (magnetohydrodynamics), Eugenia Cheng (category theory), Terry Edwards (Chartered Mathematician), David Mitchell (channel coding & mathematicians in engineering) & David Spiegelhalter (statistics & public understanding of risk).

A huge thank you to all of them!

European Postgraduate Fluid Dynamics Conference at Nottingham

Last week I went to the University of Nottingham with an IMA stall for the 3rd European Postgraduate Fluid Dynamics Conference (EPFDC). This is a conference organised by, and aimed at, postgraduate researchers in fluid dynamics and related fields and was partly funded by a grant from the IMA. I attended the final day of this 4 day conference and operated my stall during the poster session and lunch break. I met lots of postgraduate students and a couple of distinguished academics in the field who were presenting keynote talks. I was not feeling on my best form but managed to introduce a few people to the IMA who had not heard of it and sent people away with leaflets. Below are photos from this event: the first from my stall of the poster session and the second of my stall.



The behaviour of people at conferences never ceases to amuse me. If I stand by my stall I tend to be fairly lonely but if I go to the other side of the room and watch then people flock to have a look at it. Am I that scary? The other amusing behaviour is taking things from the stall. I watch people sidle up to the stall, look around and quietly slip one of the leaflets into their bag as if they are not supposed to. I wonder why people think I have brought dozens of copies of identical leaflets if not to give them out! Or perhaps people think that taking a leaflet or, worse, a copy of Mathematics Today, might be taken as a binding commitment to some terrible fate, such as joining the IMA!

Podcast: Episode 38 - David Spiegelhalter, Public understanding of risk

These are the show notes for episode 38 of the Travels in a Mathematical World Podcast. 38 is the magic constant in the only possible non-trivial normal magic hexagon. More about 38 from Number Gossip. More about magic hexagons from Wolfram Mathworld.

Before the episode proper, I gave a little ramble on listenership to the podcast and the summer break. I suggested you might like to listen to audio recordings of in depth interviews with esteemed mathematicians used in our members' publication Mathematics Today. I also asked you to link to www.travelsinamathematicalworld.co.uk from your website or blog and asked you to tell your friends about the podcast and display the poster: poster in A4 format; poster in A5 format.

This week on the podcast we heard from David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk. You can find out more about David's work from his website. If you're willing to take the risk that it might be inaccurate, you can read about David on Wikipedia.

The Understanding Uncertainty website by David and his team is well worth a visit. For example, have a look at conditional probability in Screening for disease and dishonesty, different ways of 'spinning' the same risk scenario in 2845 ways to spin the Risk and view survival curves and life expectancy in How long are you going to live?

David has written for a column in Plus magazine. See for example articles on the lottery, football premier league, surprises, how long you might live, and the probability that Obama would win the 2008 Presidential election. The concept of a micromort is well worth discovering and David writes about this in the Times.

If you enjoyed this episode the subject of assessing the odds of winning the lottery is covered by Matt Parker in episode 31.

You can find out more about my work with the IMA by following me on Twitter, reading this blog and visiting http://www.ima.org.uk/student/. Join the Facebook page.

Podcast: Episode 37 - David Mitchell, Channel coding and maths in engineering

These are the show notes for episode 37 of the Travels in a Mathematical World Podcast. 37 is prime, the number you get if a three digit number having the same digits is divided by its digit sum. More about 37 from Number Gossip.

This week on the podcast we hear from David Mitchell of the University of Edinburgh, who is doing a collaborative PhD between the Schools of Mathematics and Engineering. David talks about his area channel coding and about the links between mathematics and engineering.

You can view slides from an IBM talk on channel coding for an introduction. You can read careers profiles of mathematicians working in engineering on the Maths Careers website, where you can also find advice on taking postgraduate study.

You can find out more about my work with the IMA by following me on Twitter, reading this blog and visiting http://www.ima.org.uk/student/. Join the Facebook page.

Podcast: Episode 36 - Maths news with Sarah Shepherd

These are the show notes for episode 36 of the Travels in a Mathematical World Podcast. 36 is the smallest number (besides 1) which is both square and triangular. More about 36 from Number Gossip.

This week on the podcast I met Sarah Shepherd, PhD student at the University of Nottingham and Editor of iSquared Magazine and we discussed some maths news. Links to all the articles we mentioned are below.

Evolution of numeracy
Report on various studies into the ability of animals to do basic arithmetic. Read "Animals that count: How numeracy evolved" in New Scientist.

Bill Lionheart's electric fish
Professor Bill Lionheart at University of Manchester is interested how the Black Ghost Knife Fish generates electric fields to help his work in Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT). Read "Fish + electricity = new treatment" at BBC Manchester.

Jamitons
A new model has been developed to try to explain 'phantom' traffic jams. Read "Mathematicians take aim at 'phantom' traffic jams" at MIT news.

Deal or No Deal
Article looks the behaviour of contestants in the game show Deal or No Deal, whether they are guided by mathematics or superstition, following a feature on the BBC’s More or Less radio programme. Read "The odds of Deal or No Deal" from the BBC.

Dara O'Briain
Interview with Dara O'Briain covers his background in mathematical physics and dislike of “pseudoscience”. Also on what brought him to stand up comedy. Read "Graduate Special: Mock the geek" in New Scientist.

Gender
The piece on male under-performance and the link to GCSE is "GCSEs blamed for boys not going to university" in the Guardian. The UK gender differences in science are compared with other countries in "Science gender gap 'widest in UK'" from the BBC. The discussion of the reason for gender bias in the US is covered in "The Math Gender Gap Explained" in Newsweek and is covered in the blog post "Gender gap in maths driven by social factors, not biological differences" at the Not Exactly Rocket Science blog.

Mathematicians in Sport
I mentioned Leeds Rugby player Ryan Hall, Olympic gold medallist Chris Hoy, cricketer Claire Taylor and Commonwealth light-heavyweight boxer Nathan Cleverly, all sports people in the news with a mathematics background.

A Level Sat Nav
A report by think-tank Reform says teenagers are being 'spoon-fed' A-Levels, especially in maths. Read "Think-tank Reform says pupils are ‘spoon-fed’ with sat-nav A levels" in the Times.

Marcus du Sautoy
Marcus du Sautoy's Sexy Maths column has recent features on swine flu and game theory. Marcus' piece on sparking off an interest in maths, "The secret life of numbers", in the Guardian and its accompanying mathematical architecture tour with 11 images of buildings of mathematical interest.

Royal Society Summer Science - How do shapes fill space?
The 2009 Summer Science Exhibition at the Royal Society includes an exhibit How do shapes fill space? by a team led by mathematician Edmund Harriss, which looks at how space can be filled with shapes and what this can tell about the natural world and medieval art. Watch a video on the exhibition in a previous blog post.

iSquared
Summer issue of iSquared features an inteview with crowd modeller Keith Still plus articles on Archimedes, the financial crisis and the mathematical modelling of water pollution. For more visit the iSquared Magazine Website.

Plus
The winners of the Plus New Writers Award 2009 have been announced. You can read the winning entries (2 in each of three categories – school, university and general public) along with other articles in the latest issue of Plus.

I mentioned a piece on the IMA RUMS blog from Heriot-Watt about "Setting up a Maths Society".

You can find out more about my work with the IMA by following me on Twitter, reading this blog and visiting http://www.ima.org.uk/student/. Join the Facebook page.

Royal Society Summer Science 2009 - my interest

Below is a video from the BBC about the Royal Society Summer Science 2009 exhibition. This interests me in two ways:

Firstly, not featured in the video is Edmund Harriss and his team who have taken a mathematics exhibit to the show, "How do Shapes Fill Space?" This is good news and will be mentioned on this week's Travels in a Mathematical World maths news podcast, which will come out slightly too late!

Secondly, featured in the video is an exhibition on super water repellent surfaces from a group of physicists I know at Nottingham Trent University. In fact, the chap with his top off on the bed of nails is Professor Glen McHale who is Associate Dean for Research and so has a not inconsiderable say in whether I get my PhD.



Unfortunately I can't go as I am not in London this week. If you can, between 30 June - 4 July, visitor information is on the website.