Oxford Mathematics

In 1971 US President Richard Nixon declared war on cancer. Nixon didn't last but the war has, often at snail's pace. But recently progress has accelerated as different approaches are adopted. Including the use of topology.

Sergio Serrano de Haro Ivanez summarises his work.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 94?

Happy Birthday Roger.

Some things are so mundane and repetitive we don't think about them or, if we do, we think we know all about them. But behind the mundane there is often lurking some mathematics.

Sam Howison is in full flow.

Oxford Mathematician @alaingoriely.bsky.social awarded the 2025 LMS/IMA David Crighton Medal for his deep and influential insights into mechanical and biological processes, support of early career mathematicians, and commitment to the public understanding of maths.

www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/72714

When we put up Dominic Joyce's first lecture on projective curves, part of the Algebraic Curves course, someone asked for more pictures. Well, as they say, you can't make bricks without straw, but in lecture 2 Dominic gets artistic (sort of).

Lecture 2: youtu.be/hUBMYzR4uis

Many people don't understand mathematics. But mathematicians often don't understand mathematics either, at least not other fields, and sometimes even their own field.

Our Postgraduate 3 Minute Thesis Competition. 1 slide, 3 minutes, your peers the audience.

Full competition: youtu.be/e1xo6qWTmoc

Remember all those kids who aced maths in school and went on to university to study, shock horror, maths? Well, no doubt they aced it there too because it was just more of the same.

No doubt...

Dominic Joyce is our Savilian Professor of Geometry, a post established in 1619 and held by the likes of Halley and Wallis. Dominic also lectures on Algebraic Curves to our 3rd year students. Here's lecture 1: youtu.be/lkZ_qtP-c9I

Yes, the whiteboards need a clean. But they get so much hammer.

You're a 13 year old girl sitting in a maths class thinking 'what has this got to say about my life?'

You get home and say the same to your family who get a bit twitchy because they think a bit of maths might be useful.

Part 2 of our chat with students Ellie Guha and Sienna Jacobs.

Our much missed colleague Vicky Neale wanted to tell the world about maths. So who better for the second Vicky Neale Public Lecture than Simon Singh who has spent a career doing just that.

Wednesday 6 August, 5pm, Oxford. Online three weeks later. More info: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/72339

Mathematicians are all the same. They look the same. They only like other mathematicians. They only like maths. They did nothing but maths from the age of two.

Etc.

We wouldn't let it Lie.

When making student lectures publicly available we like to predict (technical term for guess) which will do well. We'd be Lieing if we said we had Jason Lotay's Lie Groups lectures among the most popular. But they are.

Lie Group G2: youtu.be/zROOqqJ8D5k

Our apologies to Shing Fung whose name is spelt incorrectly in the captions.

High summer is here in Oxford and the students have gone to be replaced by tourists and generic summer schools. But before they left, we had a chat. Here's the first video, with the guys on the other side of the lectern for a change.

NGL, Jason Lotay is talking about Lie Groups in the latest student lecture we are making publicly available as we throw a little light on what it's like to study maths.

Full lecture: youtu.be/z8oiwLvv8lE

And 135 more student lectures: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

The 53rd card.

Okay guys, up for it? Three minutes max, one slide.

The Oxford Mathematics SIAM-IMA 3 Minute Thesis Competition lifts the lid on our PhD students' research. So what are they up to?

Watch: youtu.be/e1xo6qWTmoc

We like a game of cricket in Oxford Mathematics. We even used to have a Pure Maths v Applied Maths annual game.

Anyway, to the point. Cricket sees a bowler bouncing a ball at a batter. So you'd think the most famous cricket pitch in the world would be flat.

Sam Howison is at the crease.

You know the feeling. It's the end of the talk and it's Q & A time. Only the audience are restless and there's that looming existential danger. Not Q & A, but S & A. Statement and Answer.

How do you liven things up?

Today, the Tour de France begins 3 gruelling weeks of sun, scenery & summits, but what's the key to winning in this elite world of small margins? How about appetite for risk? @imgoxford.bsky.social & @javichico.bsky.social lead the breakaway.

Read more: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/72427

#TDF2025

Three Oxford Mathematicians have won 2025 London Mathematical Society (@londmathsoc.bsky.social) Prizes. Left to right, Nigel Hitchin wins the De Morgan Medal, Helen Byrne the Naylor Prize and Lectureship in Applied Mathematics and Vidit Nanda a Whitehead Prize.

www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/72373

In her Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture Erica Thompson focused on the inevitable biases and subjectivity of mathematical models. Which is a bit of a problem when you have audiences only too willing to not believe those models.

Watch the full lecture: youtu.be/OpYUxZry4vo

More Algebraic Topology on offer from André Henriques' fourth year course as he gets to grips with homology. Many of the examples are worked out in pictures, as you can see.

Full lecture: youtu.be/1f9D7cZSm74

It's the biggest question in mathematics. Should have been one of the Millennium Prize Problems.

Maybe we're all modellers, carrying a model of the world around in our heads. Our models don't usually matter. But mathematicians' models can matter a lot. What do they really contain?

Watch Erica Thompson's full lecture on responsible modelling: youtu.be/OpYUxZry4vo

Our favourite Uninfluencer is back and he has a quiz for you. Obviously it involves maths, but you don't have to know any. And even if you do, your brain might get in the way.

@joshuabull.bsky.social, over to you.

In their third and fourth years our undergraduates get to hone in on the maths they really love via courses covering many aspects of the subject, including Algebraic Topology with André Henriques. We are showing two of the lectures.

Here's the first: youtu.be/YbjJ2wep8o0

Sometimes maths explains the world around us. But now and then it decides to go off into its own version of reality. For example, we can all tell one knot from another, can't we?

Can't we? Sergio?

The arts and maths undoubtedly borrow from each other, but we might assume that borrowing is left field or occasional. @marcusdusautoy.bsky.social argues that, in fact, the two disciplines often operate on the same principles.

Watch Marcus' full Public Lecture: youtu.be/xqH-oscXKTM

Oxford Mathematician and computer scientist Ursula Martin appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to Science and Education in the King's Birthday Honours.

@umartin.bsky.social led the first studies of Ada Lovelace's mathematics.

www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/71878