The Secrets of Mathematics

Oxford University

A series of talks and lectures from Oxford Mathematicians exploring the power and beauty of their subject. These talks would appeal to anyone interested in mathematics and its ever-growing range of applications from medicine to economics and beyond.

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93 episodes
Updated Jul 19, 2021

Episodes93

Newest first

Jul 19, 2021 · 44 min
Mathemalchemy: a mathematical and artistic adventure
This lecture is a visual treat as Ingrid Daubechies celebrates the joy, creativity and beauty of mathematics. Inspired by textile artist Dominique Ehrmann, Ingrid, with Dominique, conceived the idea of a large mathematical installation that incorporated a myriad of mathematical ideas in an entertaining and visually stimulating way. Aided by the whimsy and imagination of 24 colleagues from across the mathematical universe, the Installation is taking shape - all kinds of shape. So who is Arnold and why is he baking Mandelbrot cookies? Multi-award winning Ingrid Daubechies is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Jul 19, 2021 · 2 hr 4 min
I is a Strange Loop - written and performed by Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould
From the creative ensemble behind Complicité’s sensational A Disappearing Number, this two-hander unfolds to reveal an intriguing take on mortality, consciousness and artificial life. Alone in a cube that glows in the darkness, X is content with its infinite universe and abstract thought. But then Y appears, insisting they interact, exposing X to Y's sensory and physical existence. Each begins to hanker after what the other has until a remarkable thing happens … involving a strange loop. After the screening, Marcus and Victoria are joined by Simon McBurney, founder of Complicité, to discuss the play and mathematics and theatre. An Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture in partnership with Faber Members.The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Apr 28, 2021 · 59 min
Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture. Jon Keating: From one extreme to another: the statistics of extreme events
Oxford University's Sedleian Professorship of Natural Philosophy is 400 years old in 2021. The title implies a wide range of study. Current holder Jon Keating does just that in this Public Lecture via the Olympics, machine learning & the Riemann zeta-function, the mathematical object that encodes the mysterious distribution of the prime numbers.
Apr 28, 2021 · 2 hr 14 min
Spacetime Singularities - Roger Penrose, Dennis Lehmkuhl and Melvyn Bragg
We are on board the Oxford Mathematics Space Probe for this Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture as we explore Black Holes with a Nobel Laureate, a Professor of the History and Philosophy of Physics & a broadcasting legend. EvenAlbert Einstein thought Black Holes impossible. Then in 1965 Roger Penrose provided the Mathematical tools for Physicists to go and find them. A compelling story of 20th Century Science. Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture in partnership with Wadham College.
Dec 7, 2020 · 48 min
Ideas for a Complex World - Anna Seigal
Science and maths are full of smart tools for explaining the world around us. Those tools can feel far removed from the way the rest of us understand that world. Can we reconcile the two approaches? Oxford Mathematician Anna Seigal provides some answers. The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Nov 2, 2020 · 48 min
Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Henry Segerman - Artistic Mathematics: truth and beauty
Mathematicians get up to all sorts. Geometers and Topologists in particular occupy a world of inconceivable shapes, concepts and dimensions. But how do you visualise such ideas? Sure, there's computer graphics, but what about over here, in the real world? In this lecture Henry Segerman will show just how it can be done with a dazzling array of 3D prints, virtual reality and even spherical video. Most of all, he displays the intrinsic beauty of mathematics. Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Nov 2, 2020 · 54 min
Mathematics Public Lecture: How Learning Ten Equations Can Improve Your Life - David Sumpter
Mathematics has a lot going for it, but David Sumpter argues that it can not only provide you with endless YouTube recommendations, and even make you rich, but it can make you a better person. Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets
Nov 2, 2020 · 52 min
Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures: How to Make the World Add Up - Tim Harford
You have to sympathise with statistics. Misunderstood and misused when all they want to do is accumulate. What they need is a little human understanding. Tim Harford's Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture does just that. No slides, no notes, just Tim telling us how to be on our guard. The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Nov 2, 2020 · 59 min
Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Can maths tell us how to win at Fantasy Football? - Joshua Bull
Oxford Mathematician Josh Bull won the 2019-2020 Premier League Fantasy Football competition from nearly 8 million entrants. So how did he do it? Did he by any chance use mathematics? In this lecture Josh shows just how useful maths can be, not just in dealing with serious issues, but in dealing with the things that we do and enjoy in our everyday lives. The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Jun 8, 2020 · 1 hr 5 min
Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Squirrels, Turing and Excitability - Mathematical Modelling in Biology, Ecology and Medicine
The Grey Squirrel invasion explaining tumour cell proliferation? Alan Turing explaining football shirt patterns? The close relationship between slugs and the human heart? What is the common link? Mathematics of course. And Philip Maini. Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
May 27, 2020 · 19 min
Oxford Mathematics 2nd Year Student Lecture - Number Theory: Primitive Roots
In this, the second online lecture we are making widely available, Ben Green introduces and delivers a short lecture on Primitive Roots, part of the Number Theory Lecture course for Second Year Undergraduates. We are making these lectures available (there are many more on this YouTube Channel via the Playlist) to give an insight in to the student experience and how we teach Maths in Oxford. All lectures are followed by tutorials where pairs of students spend an hour with their tutor to go through the lectures and accompanying work sheets. An overview of the course and the relevant materials is available here: https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/44147
May 27, 2020 · 46 min
Oxford Mathematics 2nd Year Student Lecture - Graph Theory: Shortest Paths
Oxford has gone online for lockdown. So how do our student lectures look? Let Marc Lackenby show you as he looks at paths between vertices in a graph with a view to finding the shortest route between any two vertices. Works for your Satnav for example. We are making these lectures available (there are many more on this YouTube Channel via the Playlist) to give an insight in to the student experience and how we teach Maths in Oxford. All lectures are followed by tutorials where pairs of students spend an hour with their tutor to go through the lectures and accompanying work sheets. An overview of the course and the relevant materials is available here: https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/44174
May 19, 2020 · 53 min
Smartphones v COVID 19
Smartphones will help save lives. Smartphones' value is exaggerated. What is the reality? And, as ever, what is the Maths behind it all? Leading Network Scientist Renaud Lambiotte downloads the facts in this Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture.
Apr 15, 2020 · 1 hr 4 min
How do mathematicians model infectious disease outbreaks?
Models. They are dominating our Lockdown lives. But what is a mathematical model? We hear a lot about the end result, but how is it put together? What are the assumptions? And how accurate can they be? In our first online only lecture Robin Thompson, Research Fellow in Mathematical Epidemiology in Oxford, will explain. Robin is working on the ongoing modelling of Covid-19 and has made many and varied media appearances in the past few weeks
Apr 9, 2020 · 47 min
Oxford Mathematics 2nd Year Student Lecture - Differential Equations 2
Oxford Mathematician Peter Howell starts the second part of the 2nd year Differential Equations course which focuses on boundary problems. This lecture follows on from the lecture series last term - the first lecture of that series can be seen here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mGAh2GlD6I&t=708s We are making these lectures available to give an insight in to the student experience and how we teach. All lectures are followed by tutorials where pairs of students spend an hour with their tutor to go through the lectures and accompanying work sheets. An overview of the course and the relevant materials is available here: https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/44050
Mar 31, 2020 · 59 min
Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Alan Champneys - Why pedestrian bridges wobble: Synchronisation and the wisdom of the crowd
So much noise, so many opinions. Perhaps time for Occam's Razor to start its scientific shaving? In this latest Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture Alan Champneys argues that Mathematics is at its best when it challenges assumptions. For example the wobbling of the Millennium Bridge in London in 2000. Caused by crowds synchronising? Alan begs to differ.
Mar 2, 2020 · 49 min
Oxford Mathematics 3rd Year Student Lecture - Mathematical Models of Financial Derivatives
Our latest student lecture features the first lecture in the third year course on Mathematical Models of Financial Derivatives from Sam Cohen where we hear that the role of derivatives is not to make money but to avoid being exploited. We are making these lectures available to give an insight in to the student experience and how we teach. All lectures are followed by tutorials where pairs of students spend an hour with their tutor to go through the lectures and accompanying work sheets. An overview of the course and the relevant materials is available here: https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/42203
Mar 2, 2020 · 53 min
Oxford Mathematics 1st Year Student Lecture - Linear Algebra II
Our latest student lecture features the first lecture in the second term introductory course on Linear Algebra from leading Oxford Mathematician James Maynard. We are making these lectures available to give an insight in to the student experience and how we teach. All lectures are followed by tutorials where pairs of students spend an hour with their tutor to go through the lectures and accompanying work sheets. An overview of the course and the relevant materials is available here: https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/43829
Feb 26, 2020 · 37 min
Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Ian Griffiths - Cheerios, iPhones and Dysons: going backwards in time with fluid mechanics
How do you make a star-shaped Cheerio? How do they make the glass on your smartphone screen so flat? And how can you make a vacuum filter that removes the most dust before it blocks? All of these challenges fall under the umbrella of industrial mathematics and they all have a common theme: we know the final properties of the product we want to make and need to come up with a way of manufacturing this. Ian Griffiths demonstrates how we can use mathematics to start with the final desired product and trace the problem ‘back in time’ to manufacture products that would otherwise be impossible to produce. Ian Griffiths is a Professor of Industrial Mathematics and a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford.
Jan 16, 2020 · 44 min
Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures - Carlo Rovelli - Spin networks: the quantum structure of spacetime from Penrose's intuition to Loop Quantum Gravity
Carlo Rovelli delivers The Roger Penrose Lecture on the Quantum structure of Spacetime. In developing the mathematical description of quantum spacetime, Loop Quantum Gravity stumbled upon a curious mathematical structure: graphs labelled by spins. This turned out to be precisely the structure of quantum space suggested by Roger Penrose two decades earlier, just on the basis of his intuition. Today these graphs with spin, called "spin networks" have become a common tool to explore the quantum properties of gravity. In this talk Carlo will tell this beautiful story and illustrate the current role of spin networks in the efforts to understand quantum gravity.   Carlo Rovelli is a Professor in the Centre de Physique Théorique de Luminy of Aix-Marseille University where he works mainly in the field of quantum gravity and is a founder of loop quantum gravity theory. His popular-science book 'Seven Brief Lesson on Physics' has been translated into 41 languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide. The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

The Secrets of Mathematics

Mathemalchemy: a mathematical and artistic adventure

I is a Strange Loop - written and performed by Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould

Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture. Jon Keating: From one extreme to another: the statistics of extreme events

Spacetime Singularities - Roger Penrose, Dennis Lehmkuhl and Melvyn Bragg

Ideas for a Complex World - Anna Seigal

Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Henry Segerman - Artistic Mathematics: truth and beauty

Mathematics Public Lecture: How Learning Ten Equations Can Improve Your Life - David Sumpter

Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures: How to Make the World Add Up - Tim Harford

Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Can maths tell us how to win at Fantasy Football? - Joshua Bull

Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Squirrels, Turing and Excitability - Mathematical Modelling in Biology, Ecology and Medicine

Oxford Mathematics 2nd Year Student Lecture - Number Theory: Primitive Roots

Oxford Mathematics 2nd Year Student Lecture - Graph Theory: Shortest Paths

Smartphones v COVID 19

How do mathematicians model infectious disease outbreaks?

Oxford Mathematics 2nd Year Student Lecture - Differential Equations 2

Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Alan Champneys - Why pedestrian bridges wobble: Synchronisation and the wisdom of the crowd

Oxford Mathematics 3rd Year Student Lecture - Mathematical Models of Financial Derivatives

Oxford Mathematics 1st Year Student Lecture - Linear Algebra II

Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture: Ian Griffiths - Cheerios, iPhones and Dysons: going backwards in time with fluid mechanics

Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures - Carlo Rovelli - Spin networks: the quantum structure of spacetime from Penrose's intuition to Loop Quantum Gravity