First Research-in-Groups programme approved

ICMS is happy to announce that it has approved a short Research-in-Groups programme entitled Spectral Triples on A(T)-Algebras and Generalisations submitted by Dr Joachim Zacharias (Nottingham). Dr Zacharias will work on a short research project in Glasgow, with Dr Stuart White (Glasgow) and Dr Adam Skalski (Lancaster/Lódź), from 22 March – 3 April 2009. All three researchers work in operator algebra theory and hope to make specific substantial progress within selected topics involving spectral triples. A report will be published on the icms website following the activity. This research is funded by EPSRC, the Edinburgh Mathematical Society and the Glasgow Mathematical Journal Trust. Visit http://www.icms.org.uk/proposals/rigs for background details.

ICMS gets festive about science

Yesterday morning the programme for the Edinburgh International Science Festival was formally launched by the Michael Russell MSP, the Scottish Culture Minister.  This year’s programme contains six events orgainsed by  ICMS – our largest contribution to the Festival to date.

Paul Erdös in N is a Number

Building on the success of last year’s Film Cubed season, we return to Filmhouse Cinema for Maths at the Movies.  This year the focus is on the way mathematicians are represented in different kinds of narrative – pure fiction, fictionalised real life and documentary.  The pure fiction offering is The Oxford Murders, starring John Hurt and Elijah Wood, screened on April 7.   The Hollywood retelling of the story of maths students taking on the Las Vegas casinos is our second film, 21. It stars Kevin Spacey and is screened on 9 April.  The season concludes on 16 April with the documentary N is a number – a film portrait of Paul Erdös.  This screening will be followed by an audience and panel discussion.

Still from Ratatouille

Staying with the film theme, we are very pleased to welcome David Baraff of Pixar Animation Studios. Onthe evening of 14 April, David will be giving a talk on the a role of mathematical modelling in computer animation, illustrated with clips and computer graphics and not an equation in sight!  To complement this talk, there will be a screening of Pixar’s Oscar winning tale of a French rat’s ambition to be a chef, Ratatouille. David will give a special introduction to the film at Filmhouse Cinema earlier that afternoon.

Allen Knutson, The Juggling Mathematician

Our sixth presentation for this festival is a talk by Allen Knutson, of Cornell University, about the relationship between mathematics and juggling!  By mathematically analysing the process of juggling he found it was possible to discover new tricks that may never have come to light otherwise.  This promises to be a most entertaining event as Allen demonstrates the principles involved using his dazzling juggling skills. This event takes place early in the evening of 14 April.

Both talks will be in the Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh.  Tickets can be purchased in advance from the Science Festival website.

All four films will be screened in Filmhouse Cinema, 88 Lothian Road, Edinburgh.  Tickets can be purchased in advance from the Filmhouse website or in person at their box office.

Knitted maths in Washington DC

A knitted rotation of y=1/x

In summer of 2008 ICMS staff member Madeleine Shepherd and University of Edinburgh postgraduate student Hugh Griffiths collaborated on a knitted model of a surface of revolution – specifically a rotation of y = 1/x around the y-axis.

After an initial showing in a science ficiton exhibition at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008  (pictured left), the model was selected for the Juried Mathematical Fiber Arts Exhibit at the Joint Mathematics Meeting (JMM) in Washington DC on 7 January 2009.  Madeleine was very flattered to be included in the exhibition,  along side such well known crafting mathematicians as Daina Taimina and Pat Ashforth. Photographs and the artists statement are now online and the whole exhibition can be found here (page 2 for this piece but don’t miss Hugh’s knitted knots on page 1)

The exhibition formed part of the AMS Special Session on Mathematics and Mathematics Education in Fiber Arts, organised by Sarah-Marie Belcastro and Carolyn Yackel. Talks covered the use of fibre arts to aid mathematical understanding and the use of mathematics in the creation of fibre art work. The programme and abstracts can be found on the Toriodal Snark website.