Maths on the Move, the podcast from plus.maths.org, will bring you the latest news from the world of maths, plus interviews and discussions with leading mathematicians and scientists about the maths that is changing our lives. Hosted by Plus editors Rachel Thomas and Marianne Freiberger.
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The origin of life: On Earth and elsewhere
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Is there life elsewhere in the Universe? And how did life emerge here on Earth? These two questions are often considered separately, but answers to one shed important light on answers to the other. In their new book Is Earth exceptional: The quest for cosmic life, renowned astrophysicist Mario Livio and Nobel laureate Jack Szostak combine both thes…
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The secret to a happy summer: Seville, causality and staircases!
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We're getting excited for the summer here but before we all head off on holidays we catch up with Marianne in Spain at the European Congress of Mathematics, and Justin and Rachel in the UK having just attended some fascinating events in London and Cambridge held by the Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the Newton Gateway. Marianne…
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On the mathematical frontline: Modelling behaviour
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How we behave can have far greater impacts than just on our own daily lives. For example who we interact with and whether we get vaccinated affects how diseases spread through the community. So if we are going to use maths to try to understand such a challenge facing society, we need to make sure we include human behaviour in our mathematical model…
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Euromaths: Maryna Viazovska
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We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! We noticed that mathematicians who win one of the prizes awarded at the ECM by the European Mathematical Society quite often go on to win a Fields Medal, one of the highest honours in mathematics. So to celebrate t…
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We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! We noticed that mathematicians who win one of the prizes awarded at the ECM by the European Mathematical Society quite often go on to win a Fields Medal, one of the highest honours in mathematics. So to celebrate t…
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We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! We noticed that mathematicians who win one the prizes awarded at the ECM by the European Mathematical Society quite often go on to win a Fields Medal, one of the highest honours in mathematics. So to celebrate the …
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Euromaths: James Maynard
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We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! And we noticed that mathematicians who win one the prizes awarded at the ECM by the European Mathematical Society quite often go on to win a Fields Medal, one of the highest honours in mathematics. So to celebrate …
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Euromaths: Hugo Duminil-Copin
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We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! One of the interesting things that happens at an ECM is that the European Mathematical Society (EMS) awards ten prizes to mathematicians who are under the age of 35 at the start of the year the prizes are awarded. …
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The murmuration conjecture: finding new maths with AI
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Artificial intelligence is changing our lives. Many of us use the voice activated features on our phones to recognise, understand and fairly complex speech. Students use ChatGPT to do their homework. And doctors use AI algorithms to help diagnose many diseases from medical data. But how is AI changing the lives of mathematicians? In this podcast we…
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Tying together black holes, quantum gravity and number theory
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"The 20th century was the interaction of geometry and physics, and the 21st century is the interaction of number theory with physics." This intriguing insight comes from our recent discussion with Yang-Hui He from the London Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Yang told us an amazing story about the flow of ideas between mathematics and physics, th…
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The art of maths and the maths of art
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Mathematics is a creative pursuit so it's not surprising that there are communalities between maths and art in all its forms. In this episode we explore the intersection between maths and art with physicist Andrzej Herczyński and mathematician Paul Glendinning. Andrzej Herczyński Andrzej and Paul were two of the organisers of the workshop Space, sc…
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Ramanujan: Dream of the possible
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One of the most fascinating figures in the history of mathematics was Srinivasa Ramanujan, a self-taught Indian genius who formed a remarkable relationship with the Cambridge mathematician GH Hardy. Ramanujan was interested in problems in number theory, which are often easy to state, but incredibly difficult to prove. One amazing thing about Ramanu…
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Celebrating spring with new shoots of mathematics
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In this episode of Maths on the move we look at some favourite pieces of maths we have worked on so far this year. From a revolutionary new tile to new insights in topology, and from fooling cancer cells to bringing mathematical research into the classroom, we hope there's something interesting there for everyone. To find out more about the topics …
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How physics can help AI learn about the real world
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It's always exciting to have a glimpse at new mathematics and technology as they take shape. In this podcast we talk to Georg Maierhofer, from the University of Oxford, about an exciting new idea that is only just emerging – physics informed neural networks (PINNs for short) – where you add in the laws of physics to machine learning methods. We hav…
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The force awakens: Quantum collisions
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Last weekend our friends and neighbours at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge put on a great event: the Mathematics Discovery Day, part of the Cambridge Festival. Among the may hands-on activities, games and pop-up explorations were the hugely popular, and well-attended, workshops for students delivered by our colle…
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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 re…
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It's all connected – climate change and the spread of diseases
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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 cam…
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Reduce, remove, refreeze: Repairing the Earth's climate
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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…
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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, …
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Can we build a low carbon energy network
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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 Operation…
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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 …
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The universal machine: Putting Alan Turing on the stage
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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 …
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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 DuSautoy, who were both involved in the development of the play A disappearing number produced by Complicité. The play explores the fascinating co…
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Have physicists discovered a fifth force of nature?
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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 f…
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Victoria Gould: Combining mathematics and acting
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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…
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How many dimensions are there?
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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 publ…
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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 …
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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 betwe…
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How does human noise impact whales?
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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 t…
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Living Proof: The irrational diary of Clara Valentine
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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 mathematic…
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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 Gatew…
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Gravitational waves reveal cosmic hum
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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, Indi…
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Sarah Hart: Once upon a prime
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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 an…
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A very old problem turns 30!
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"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 Ferma…
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Chocolate and mayonnaise
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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 Valer…
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A new map of dark matter
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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…
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SBIDER Presents: Shining a light on COVID modelling
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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 Pres…
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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 …
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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 fin…
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Climate change and ready meals: Challenges for epidemiologists
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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 resea…
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Living Proof: Timandra Harkness – How to make maths funny
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"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 b…
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Living Proof: Hannah Thomas – Making data accessible
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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 …
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Living Proof: Communicating from the frontiers of mathematics
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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 eve…
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On the mathematical frontline: Tom Irving
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Here at Plus, we were very grateful for Tom Irving's work during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was the Co-Head of the secretariat of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (otherwise known as SPI-M). One of his responsibilities was writing the consensus statements that came out of SPI-M, summarising current understanding of the mathematical …
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If you've ever been lucky enough to meet David Spiegelhalter, or hear him talk in person or on TV or radio, you'll know he tells a great story. And the stories he told in his 2015 book Sex by numbers were fascinating and highly entertaining, as well giving us the tools to critically assess the statistics we read every day in the news. And sex is ba…
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What are liquid metal batteries
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The world needs to move to renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind. The problem with those is that they're intermittent. That's because the Sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. What we need, then, are efficient ways of storing energy: efficient batteries. Currently lithium ion batteries are being used but there are iss…
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A 60% chance of rain: Weather, climate, and how to deal with uncertainty
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Will climate change leave the region you live in hotter and drier, or wetter and stormier? It's a question of utmost importance in many areas of the world, yet it's one that climate scientists can't answer. This is why world-leading climate scientist Tim Palmer is calling for a high-performance supercomputing centre dedicated entirely to climate ch…
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Are the constants of nature really constant?
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There are some numbers you can rely on. The speed of light, c, is 299,792,458 ms-1. The gravitational constant, G, is 6.674 x 10-11m3kg-1s-2. These are examples of what are often called the constants of nature – fundamental physical quantities that seem to be the same everywhere, and unchanging over time. Or are they? Today would have been our wond…
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Amid much controversy, the 2022 World Cup has begun and the action has now moved onto the football pitches inside the many newly built stadiums in Qatar. But how are these stadiums turned from architectural sketches into real buildings? For this week's episode we delve back far into our archive to hear from Paul Shepherd from the University of Bath…
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