Maths on the Move

Artificial intelligence has made astonishing progress in the last few years. Perhaps surprisingly, all of the amazing things we've seen, from ChatGPT to generative AI, are powered by same mathematical technique: machine learning, and in particular deep learning. In this episode of Maths on the move we talk to  Kweku Abraham , member of  Maths4DL , a research project which investigates deep learnin...

We’re now all very aware that climate change is not just a problem for the future – 2023 was officially the hottest year on record ever. And as well as impacting our lives through food security, flooding and drought, climate change can also impact our health by the impact it can have on the spread of diseases. A very interesting group of people came together to discuss this in January 2024. Policy...

Could we make the clouds brighter so they reflect more of the Sun's warming rays back into space to keep us cooler? Or make Arctic ice thicker so it lasts longer over the summer? These ideas might sound slightly fantastical, but they're active research areas at the  Centre for Climate Repair  which has recently become our neighbour here at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of...

In this, the last episode of Maths on the move for this year, we look back on 2023 and forward to 2024. We talk about some highlights in our coverage of this year's mathematics, and some of the exciting things to come next year. It's a crazy journey featuring breakthroughs in pure maths, the maths of music and Ed Sheeran, renewable energy sources, the maths of justice, and the epidemiology of clim...

To help mitigate climate change the UK government has pledged to decarbonised UK electricity supply by 2035. That's a huge science and engineering challenge on a very tight deadline. In this episode we talk to two people who know all about the challenges involved:  Chris Dent , Professor of Industrial Mathematics, and  Lars Schewe , Reader in Operational Research, both of the University of Edinbur...

We continue our series about bringing maths to the stage and screen by going back to 2012 when we were lucky enough to host the UK premiere of the  Travelling Salesman , here at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, our home. It is an unusual movie: despite almost every character being a mathematician there's not a mad person in sight. Moreover, the plot centres on one of the greatest unsolved pro...

When you think of Alan Turing you might think of his work breaking the Enigma code in World War II. Or you might think of his work that helped build the foundations of computer science and mathematical logic. Or you might even think of his groundbreaking work in mathematical biology on morphogensis which helps explain animal patterns. One thing we hadn't thought of, until 2013 that is, was that he...

This is the second part of our mini series focussing on mathematics coming to life on stage and in film. We revisit our 2008 interview with mathematician and actor Victoria Gould and mathematician  Marcus Du Sautoy , who were both involved in the development of the play A disappearing number produced by Complicité. The play explores the fascinating collaboration between the mathematicians  GH Hard...

In the summer we came across  news coverage  claiming that scientist were on the verge of discovering a fundamental force of nature they hadn't previously known about. This would be a fifth force, in addition to gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Such a discovery would be quite a revolution, so we went to talk to our friend Ben Allanach , Professor of Theoretical Ph...

Victoria Gould has always known she would be an actor, and went straight from studying arts at school to running her own theatre company. But she eventually had to come clean about her guilty secret - she loves maths - and has since managed to combine a career as a research mathematician and teacher with a successful acting career on television and in theatre. For this episode of Maths on the move...

How many dimensions are there? We might not be aware, but we are actually used to living in a curved, multidimensional Universe. In this episode theoretical physicist David Berman explains how, and he also dives into the world of string theory which predicts that the Universe has ten dimensions, some of which are hidden from our view. We first published this episode back in 2012, as part of our Sc...

n this podcast we bring you breaking news from the world of topology! Four mathematicians, all in earlier stages of their career, have resolved the long-standing telescope conjecture which explores holes in spheres – of any dimension! The result was announced this summer at a conference organised by Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences  in Cambridge (INI). We talk to two of these mathe...

How is mathematics related to frequency related to pitch? We found out from our favourite music correspondent, Oli Freke! In this podcast you can hear how the music we love emerges from pure mathematical beats.   This podcast was originally released earlier this year when musician Ed Sheeran was in the news  as he was being sued for similarities between his song Thinking out loud from 2014, and Ma...

We humans have many rules and regulations surrounding noise — because we recognise that noise disruption is annoying, stressful, and ultimately robs us of our health. Spare a thought for whales then, who have to put up with the constant noise caused by shipping and the construction of oil rigs and wind farms in the oceans. There are concerns that the noise pollution we cause bothers and confused t...

This week we co-host a fascinating episode of the Isaac Newton Institute's  Living Proof  podcast. In the episode Dan Aspel speaks to  Coralie Colmez , author of the young adult novel The irrational diary of Clara Valentine, recently chosen as one of  Chalkdust magazine's  books of the year. Coralie’s ambition was to write a story rich in both mathematics and mystery, with the Chalkdust review hig...

Did you do anything fun on your summer holidays? The mathematicians in this podcast spent some of their summer helping to create the perfect smoothie, getting the most sugar out of sugar cane, and attacking other important real-world problems. They did all this attending the Graduate Modelling Camp , which is organised every year by the Newton Gateway to Mathematics in Cambridge. The camp gives ea...

There's been some huge news in the world of cosmology: for the first time scientists have detected a low frequency hum of gravitational waves. The new results were published by the  North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves , NANOGrav for short. The NANOGrav team were not alone — they coordinated with collaborations in Europe, India, Australia, and China, which released similar...

People don't usually think about maths and literature as related subjects, but it turns out that there are plenty of connections between the two. In this podcast we talk to mathematician Sarah Hart about her brilliant book  Once upon a time: The wondrous connections between mathematics and literature . Sarah tells us about the links between poetry and mathematical proof, the maths of Moby dick and...

"I think I'll stop here." This is how, on 23rd June 1993,  Andrew Wiles  ended his series of lectures at the  Isaac Newton Institute  (INI), our neighbour here at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences. The applause, so witnesses report, was thunderous. Wiles had just announced a proof that had eluded mathematicians for over 350 years: the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Wiles' announcement, 30 year...

Chocolate and mayonnaise are two of our all time favourite foods, so we were very happy to get the chance to talk to  Valerie Pinfield , Professor of Engineering at Loughborough University, who has used maths to work on both chocolate and mayonnaise. We talked to Valerie at the  Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences  in Cambridge where Valerie is currently co-organising a  research prog...

You might have heard in the news recently that musician Ed Sheeran was being sued for similarities between his song Thinking out loud from 2014, and Marvin Gaye's song Get it on from 1973. But, given the way we write music to fit into specific genres, is it possible to write unique music with the limited quantity of notes and chords available? In this podcast Oli Freke, our favourite music corresp...

Did you know that we don't know what 85% of the stuff in our Universe is made of? This mysterious 85% is known as dark matter. We can't see it because it doesn't emit or reflect light, but we know it's there because it exerts a gravitational pull on stars and galaxies, and also bends the path of light. In this podcast we talk to  Blake Sherwin  about a brand new map of dark matter that has been pr...

Was the mathematical modelling projecting the course of the pandemic too pessimistic, or were the projections justified? Matt Keeling tells our colleagues Ed Hill and Laura Guzmán-Rincón from SBIDER about some of the COVID models that fed into public policy.----more---- Matt Keeling ----more----We're very pleased to host this episode of  SBIDER Presents , one of the podcasts produced by the  Zeema...

In a tank in an underground laboratory in Cambridge a little green alga is executing a powerful breaststroke. It belongs to a group of algae called volvocales and it doesn't have a brain. So how can it coordinate its tiny little "arms" to perform motions worthy of an Olympic swimmer?   Algae going through their paces.  (Movies: Kirsty Wan and Raymond E. Goldstein, for more information see this pap...

What is infinity? What is infinity plus 100? What is infinity plus infinity? Today's podcast was inspired by questions sent in by our friend Ash. To answer Ash's questions we take a trip to  our favourite hotel , and we revisit our 2012 interview with our late boss,  John D. Barrow , when we asked him –  does infinity exist?  Listen to the podcast to find out how infinity can corrupt the youth, wh...