Maths on the Move

Chocolate and mayonnaise

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 programme on the mathematical theory and applications of multiple wave scattering. As we will find out, this has a huge range of applications, from understanding mayonnaise to making invisibility cloaks.
While Valerie is a professor at the University of Loughborough now, her career path has also involved work in industry and time out for kids, so we also asked her for some advice for women mathematicians and scientists wondering how to build their career.
This podcast was produced as part of our collaboration with the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) – you can find all the content from the collaboration here.
The INI is an international research centre and our neighbour here on the University of Cambridge's maths campus. It attracts leading mathematical scientists from all over the world, and is open to all. Visit www.newton.ac.uk to find out more.

From clicks to chords

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 correspondent, answers this question and plays us real examples of the connections between maths and music.
You can find out more about the maths in music in Oli's articles – How many melodies are there? and Sine language. And you can find more of Oli's music, and his book "Synthesizer Evolution", here!
The music in this podcast comes from, of course, Oli Freke! The track is called Funk Off.

A new map of dark matter

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 produced by a consortium of scientists using data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope which sits high up in the Chilean Andes. Sherwin is part of that consortium, and he is also Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics the University of Cambridge and a member of the Stephen Hawking Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at Cambridge.
Sherwin tells us how you go about producing a map of something you can't see, in how far the new map solves the so-called crisis of cosmology, and whether we will ever find out what dark matter is made of.
To find out more about dark matter, read Maths in a minute: Dark matter and What is dark matter? And you can find all the details about the research by Blake, his PhD student Frank Qu, and their colleagues in their series of papers here, here and here.
 
The music in this podcast is by eusa and the track is called Plankton. you can find their music on Soundcloud.

SBIDER Presents: Shining a light on COVID modelling

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.

Synchronised swimming

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 paper)
 
In 2019 we visited Ray Goldstein, Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems at Cambridge, and he explained how algae manage to synchronise their so-called flagella, what this means for human physiology, and how it sheds light on the evolution of multi-cellular organisms from single-celled ones.
You can also read our article on Goldstein's work with volvocales, or watch an interview with Goldstein in this video.
 
 
Sound effects in this podcast are from Robinhood76 and 16HPanskaKanclirova_Victoria on freesound.org.
 
This podcast was partially funded by the European Mathematical Society.
 

Does infinity exist?

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, why subtracting infinities can give you the right answer, and the weirdness that might be lurking out there in the cosmos...
Image created by FAVIO.
You can read more about infinity on plus.maths.org. And if you have a question about life, the universe and everything you'd like us to answer – email us as plus@maths.cam.ac.uk or contact us on twitter.

Climate change and ready meals: Challenges for epidemiologists

During the pandemic we all learnt to value the work of epidemiologists, whose mathematical models are essential in giving us an idea of where an epidemic might be heading. But just as there's a wide range of infectious diseases apart from COVID, so there's also a wide range of research questions epidemiologists ask.
In this podcast we talk to researchers Helena Stage and Laura Guzmán-Rincón about two such questions. One concerns the fact that a warming climate allows disease-carrying mosquitoes to live in places they previously found too cold. The other asks how you might detect a hidden outbreak of food poisoning coming, for example, from ready meals having been contaminated way back in the production chain. Both require clever mathematical ideas and ingenious detective work.      
Helena and Laura are members of the JUNIPER modelling consortium. We met them at a JUNIPER research meeting which took place at the University of Warwick in March 2023.
This podcast is part of our collaboration with JUNIPER, the Joint UNIversity Pandemic and Epidemic Response modelling consortium.
JUNIPER comprises academics from the universities of Cambridge, Warwick, Bristol, Exeter, Oxford, Manchester, and Lancaster, who are using a range of mathematical and statistical techniques to address pressing question about the control of COVID-19. You can see more content produced with JUNIPER here.

Living Proof: Timandra Harkness – How to make maths funny

"What's a statistician's favourite sandwich filling?..."
Timandra Harkness – presenter, writer, comedian and Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society – told our friends Dan Aspel and Maha Kaouri her favourite maths joke in this episode of the Living Proof podcast from the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
Timandra Harkness
 
Timandra brilliantly chaired several sessions of the Communicating mathematics for the public event at the Newton Gateway to Mathematics. In this podcast Timandra spoke about how to make maths funny, and how she came to fall in love with mathematics from an arts and humanities background.
Oh and the punchline to Timandra's favourite joke? You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out!
 
00:00 – Introduction00:44 – Welcome, discussing Communicating mathematics for the public03:38 – Origins of Timandra's interest in maths, understanding "enough to ask the right questions"07:50 – Discussing Timandra's book Big Data – Does Size Matter?11:10 – Other current projects and shows, writing another book about "why everything is personalised"13:13 – Mingling an arts background with a mathematics focus, "coming out as a closet mathematician"17:10 – How do you make maths funny as a comedian? … "What's a statistician's favourite sandwich filling?"21:10 – Future projects
 
This podcast was inspired by the Communicating mathematics for the public event at the Newton Gateway to Mathematics in January 2023.
 
(If that joke tickles your funny bone – try this one!)
 
This podcast is part of our collaboration with the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) – you can find all the content from our collaboration here. The INI is an international research centre and our neighbour here on the University of Cambridge's maths campus. It attracts leading mathematical scientists from all over the world, and is open to all. Visit www.newton.ac.uk to find out more.
 

Living Proof: Hannah Thomas – Making data accessible

Having empathy with your audience – with all your audiences – is the first step for making your content accessible. Hannah Thomas of the Government Analysis Function explained this in her brilliant talk at the Communicating mathematics for the public event at the Newton Gateway to Mathematics. Hannah's talk was full of insights and practical ideas on how to make all content published online easy to access and use for all users, regardless of impairment, medical condition or disability.
Our friends Dan Aspel and Maha Kaouri spoke to Hannah for this episode of the Living Proof podcast from the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Hannah told them about her work helping to make government data more accessible, the common pitfalls of data accessibility and tips and tricks that can help. They also find our why more people used to get married at the end of the tax year...
Hannah Thomas speaking at the Communicating mathematics for the public event
 
00:00 – Introduction00:44 – Welcome, discussing “Communicating Mathematics for the Public” (“as entertaining as Disneyland Paris and definitely more inspiring”)04:20 – All about Government Analysis Function, a love of data journalism, career history13:35 – Visualising data and making digital information accessible21:40 – Common accessibility pitfalls24:20 – Plans for the future… e-learning resources
 
This podcast was inspired by the Communicating mathematics for the public event at the Newton Gateway to Mathematics in January 2023. For more information we strongly recommend you watch Hannah's talk from that event, Data Visualisation and Digital Accessibility: What We Can Do to Help.
 
This podcast is part of our collaboration with the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) – you can find all the content from our collaboration here. The INI is an international research centre and our neighbour here on the University of Cambridge's maths campus. It attracts leading mathematical scientists from all over the world, and is open to all. Visit www.newton.ac.uk to find out more.

Living Proof: Communicating from the frontiers of mathematics

We are very happy to work closely with our neighbours, the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI), to help explain, celebrate and publicise the research that happens at the Institute. But what challenges does that present? And why should it happen in the first place?
Following on from the Communicating mathematics for the public event at the Newton Gateway to Mathematics we spoke to the INI's Dan Aspel about our work in this episode of the Living Proof podcast. You can find all the content from our collaboration here.
Communicating from the mathematical frontiers - from plotting a path to the highest peak to exploring the hidden depths.
 
 
 
00:00 – Introduction00:44 – Welcome, discussing Communicating Mathematics for the Public, the importance of trustworthiness05:30 – Who you're speaking to vs what you're saying07:38 – Making higher mathematics accessible to audiences: "any bit of mathematics either comes from somewhere, or is going somewhere, or both"14:20 – Are there incommunicable subjects?16:55 – The rarity of maths "headlines"19:25 – The partnership between INI and Plus magazine – why is it important?23:25 – Are some topics inherently more interesting?25:26 – What is the end goal of maths communication? "I would love it if people could see how maths is everywhere… that maths is a language of rhythms and patterns"30:00 – Looking to the future
This podcast was inspired by the Communicating mathematics for the public event at the Newton Gateway to Mathematics in January 2023. You can watch our talk from that event, Trust, time and truth, that was about our collaboration with JUNIPER modelling consortium.
This podcast is part of our collaboration with the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) – you can find all the content from our collaboration here. The INI is an international research centre and our neighbour here on the University of Cambridge's maths campus. It attracts leading mathematical scientists from all over the world, and is open to all. Visit www.newton.ac.uk to find out more.