Maths on the Move

This month we had the pleasure of meeting some young female mathematicians who were just finishing up their summer research projects with the Philippa Fawcett Internship Programme and the Cambridge Mathematics Placements programme.
On our way to the writing workshops we were running with these women, we walked past six inspiring portraits of female mathematicians from Cambridge. These form part of the Women of Mathematics photo exhibition, which celebrates female mathematicians from institutions throughout Europe. When the University of Cambridge hosted the exhibition in 2017, we had the opportunity to interview these Cambridge mathematicians about their work and their mathematical lives.
In this podcast we revisit our 2017 interview with Natalia Berloff, Professor of Applied Mathematics, who told us why maths is like a treasure hunt, and shared some of her adventures in the world of maths.
 
You can see all the Cambridge portraits and find out more about the work and mathematical lives of these women here.  And stay tuned to this podcast for the rest of the interviews with these brilliant women of mathematics over the coming weeks.
The music in this podcast comes from the band eusa. The track is called Plankton.

In this podcast, first published in August 2020, we hear from machine learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio, who believes that creating a true artificial intelligence will only be possible once machines have something that babies are born with: the ability to interact with the world, observe what happens, and adapt to the consequences of their actions.
Yoshua Bengio (Photo copyright: Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation)
We'll find out how such agency helps us learn, what it could mean for computers to have it too, and hear about Bengio's work introducing it into an area of machine learning called deep learning.
And, in honour of the mathematician Ron Graham who sadly passed away in July 2020, we celebrate our very favourite number, Graham's number, by telling you about it in just one minute.
You can find out more about Bengio's take on agency in this series of articles, about machine learning in this article, and about Graham's number in this article.
The music in the podcast is by Oli Freke and the track is called Line-1. You can listen to more of Oli's music on Soundcloud.
This podcast was produced as part of our collaboration with the Isaac Newton Institute (INI) – you can find out more of our work with the INI here.

Artificial intelligence and machines that train themselves might sound like a plot from a science fiction movie, but these things are already part of our everyday lives.
How can a machine learn to distinguish a picture of a cat from a picture of a dog?
 
At the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in 2019, Chris Budd, Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Bath, talked us through the basics of how these learning machines tick.  While Raj Reddy, Turing Award winner and artificial intelligence pioneer, talked to us about his grand challenges in artificial intelligence, and why time travel and immortality might be easier to achieve than creating a machine that rivals human intelligence.
To find out more about machine learning, its history, and some of the moral questions it raises, read the series of articles based on Chris' Gresham College lectures. 
The music in this podcast is from Oli Freke, and the track is called "Experimental 5". You can find his music at soundcloud.
This podcast, first published in August 2020, was partially funded by the European Mathematical Society.
 

To celebrate the Commonwealth Games happening this week in the UK we are visiting one of the venues, the velodrome in the Lee Valley VeloPark in London.  The velodrome, with its striking curved shape, was built for the London 2012 Olympics.  In the run up to the 2012 Olympics, we talked to structural engineers Andrew Weir and Pete Winslow from Expedition Engineering, who were part of the design team for the velodrome, about how mathematics helped create its iconic shape. 
 
Sir Chris Hoy leads the GB Cycling Team during the official opening of the Velodrome (Photograph by David Poultney)
We hope you enjoy revisiting this conversation, and you can find out more in this accompanying article. Good luck to all the athletes completing in the 2022 Commonwealth Games!

June Huh has won one of this year's Fields Medals at the International Congress of Mathematicians. The Fields Medal is one of the most prestigious prizes in mathematics. It is awarded every four years "to recognise outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement". Up to four mathematicians up to the age of 40 are awarded a Fields Medal each time.
June Huh. Photo: Lance Murphey.
In this podcast, which comes to you from the opening days of the ICM 2022 in Helsinki, we talk to Huh about is relatively late start in mathematics, about maths you can "feel and touch", and why maths mirrors who we are as a species.
You can read about Huh's work in this short introduction and this in-depth article. See here for all our coverage of the prizes awarded at the ICM 2022.
This content was produced as part of our collaborations with the London Mathematical Society and the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. You can find all our content on the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians here.
 

Hugo Duminil-Copin has won a 2022 Fields Medal for his work transforming the mathematical theory of phase transitions in statistical physics. Fields Medals count among the highest honours in mathematics and are awarded every four years at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) to researchers up to the age of 40.
Hugo Duminil-Copin (Photo Matteo Fieni, used with permission)
In this podcast, which comes to you from a beautiful lake on day two of the ICM 2022 in Helsinki, we talk to Duminil-Copin about how his work in statistical physics brings together his two loves – maths and physics.
You can read about Duminil-Copin's work in this short introduction and this in-depth article. See here for all our coverage of the prizes awarded at the ICM 2022.
This content was produced as part of our collaborations with the London Mathematical Society and the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. You can find all our content on the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians here.
 

James Maynard has won a 2022 Fields Medal for "spectacular contributions to number theory". Fields Medals count among the highest honours in mathematics and are awarded every four years at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) to researchers up to the age of 40.
James Maynard (Photo by Ryan Cowan, used with permission)
In this podcast, which comes to you from the opening day of the ICM 2022 in Helsinki, we talk to Maynard about his love for numbers and groundbreaking progress towards something that has eluded mathematician for a very long time: a proof of the twin prime conjecture.
You can read about Maynard's work in this short introduction and this in-depth article. See here for all our coverage of the prizes awarded at the ICM 2022. And to hear from the other Fields Medallists check out existing and upcoming podcast episodes.
This content was produced as part of our collaborations with the London Mathematical Society and the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. You can find all our content on the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians here.
 

Hello from Helsinki! We are very pleased to be bringing you coverage direct from the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) – one of the highlights of the mathematical calendar. The ICM takes place every four years and it's usually the biggest maths conference of them all, attracting thousands of participants, and also sees the awards of some very prestigious prizes, including the famous Fields Medals.
This year's Congress is a little different – it is being held as a fully virtual event with only the prize ceremonies and lectures taking place in-person in Helsinki, Finland on 5 and 6 July. The rest of the schedule fascinating talks from across the spectrum of maths will take place online over the coming week.
In this podcast we tell you all the winners of all the prizes being announced today at the ICM and bring you an interview with one of them: Maryna Viazovska, who has won a Fields Medal for a ground-breaking result in the theory of sphere packings. Viazovska is only the second woman to receive a Fields Medal, following on from Maryam Mirzakhani, who won it in 2014.
Maryna Viazovska. Photo: Matteo Fieni.
 
You can find out more about Viazovska's work in our short introduction or our more in-depth article.
To read about the work of all the prize winners, see here. And to hear from the other Fields Medallists watch out for upcoming podcast episodes.
This content was produced as part of our collaborations with the London Mathematical Society and the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. You can find all our content on the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians here.
 

We are getting very excited - next week is the International Congress of Mathematicians  (ICM)- one of the highlights of the mathematical calendar!  The ICM takes place every four years and it’s the biggest maths conference of them all, attracting thousands of participants, and also sees the awards of some very prestigious prizes, including the famous Fields medal.
We are fortunate to have been able to interview the prize winners in advance of the conference, but that’s top secret and we won’t be revealing the winners till they are announced publicly in Helsinki next week!  We're really looking forward to sharing our interviews with you when we meet them in person in Helsinki next week, where we will also bring you all the news from the ICM itself.
But in the meantime, to get us in the mood, let's revisit the 2018 ICM that took place in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.  It was a brilliant conference and the podcast you are about to hear was recorded on that very first days of the 2018 ICM, when all the big prizes were announced.  You can find all our coverage of the past three ICM’s by going  to plus.maths.org and searching for "ICM".  
And stay tuned for our special series of podcasts, Maths on the Red Carpet, starting next week, that will bring you all our reporting from this years International Congress of Mathematicians.  But for now - enjoy the sounds of the Brazilian forest in this podcast revisiting the exciting first days of the 2018 ICM....

We all have our favoured methods of shuffling cards, but most of us don't think any more about it once we've started playing a game. But there's so much more to be discovered! In this podcast mathematician Cheryl Praeger and magician Will Houstoun reveal the maths and magic behind shuffling cards. And as this podcast, first published in March 2021, was the first podcast we produced in collaboration with the Isaac Newton Institute, Dan Aspel also tells us all about the INI!
You can watch Cheryl Praeger talk about the mathematics of shuffling in her Kirk Lecture at the INI in 2020. You can be astounded by Will Houstoun's magic, including the amazing trick we mentioned in the podcast, and find out more about his work as magician in residence at the Imperial College London and Royal College of Music Centre for Performance Science, at his website. And you can read all the details behind the maths and magic of shuffling in their Plus articles: The magic of shuffling and The mathematics of shuffling.
This podcast was inspired by a talk given by Cheryl Praeger as part of the Groups, representations and applications programme at the Isaac Newton Institute. You can find out more about the maths behind this programme here.