Call for nominations for the IMA Early Career Mathematician GroupCommittee

Update (15/05/2012): Early Career Mathematicians Group Election.

The Early Career Mathematicians' (ECM) group of the IMA continues to be a great success with activities and conferences being planned all year round, and an ever-growing active presence on Social Media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The group has grown from strength to strength because of the enthusiasm and commitment of the ECM Committee.

Four vacancies (descriptions below) will open up on the ECM Committee this July, and we are looking for more fun, enthusiastic & committed ECM members to join the committee, and build on the great work we have achieved so far.

Please e-mail Benjamin.Dias@Unilever.com andSusan.Bolton@ima.org.uk if you would like to put yourself forward for any of these vacancies, or would like further information. You may also nominate someone else who you think will be willing and able to take on these roles.

The deadline for nominations will be the 31st of May. All Early Career Mathematicians (ECMs)* who are members of any grade (e.g. Member, Associate Member, Student Member, etc.) of the IMA are eligible, so get your Nominations in ASAP!

We look forward to hearing from you!

Kind Regards,
Ben

Dr. M. Benjamin Dias MIMA
Chairperson
Early Career Mathematicians' Committee
Institute of Mathematics and its Applications

1] Vice Chair and Chair-Designate (Term of office: 1 Year):
The Vice Chair supports the Chair, arranges committee meetings, records and circulates committee discussions and actions. The Vice Chair is also the Chair-Designate and is expected to take over as new Chair the following year.
[The Chair (Term of office: 1 Year) provides leadership and a focus for the group, acts as a direct liaison to the IMA Council and Secretariat, and is also responsible for coordinating responses to e-mails sent to the IMA ECM email mailbox.]

2] Conference Leader-Designate (Term of office: 1 Year):
The Conference Leader-Designate supports the IMA Conference Officer in organizing in advance, the two ECM Conferences for the following year, by identifying a suitable location, securing speakers and pulling together a suitable programme. The Conference Leader-Designate is also expected to take over as the new Conference Leader the following year.
[The Conference Leader (Term of office: 1 Year) hosts the two ECM Conferences that take place during their year of office, and liaises with the IMA Conference Office on behalf of the ECM Committee regarding all conference related queries.]

3] Promotion Leader (Term of office: 1 Year):
The Promotion Leader coordinates the promotion of the IMA, the ECM group and Mathematics to ECMs (by for example organizing ECM social and networking events), and also coordinate the promotion of the ECM group's activities to the wider IMA membership (for example via Mathematics Today articles and the IMA Social Media platforms).

4] Engagement Leader (Term of office: 1 Year):
The Engagement Leader’s role is to encourage ECM members to engage more actively with the IMA by upgrading their membership, gaining Chartership designation and engaging with the IMA in their local areas, either by being involved with their local branch or setting one up where no local branch exists. The Engagement Leader also liaises with the IMA University Liaison Officer to encourage ECM support for IMA activities aimed at engaging with university students.

* Early Career Mathematicians (ECMs) are defined as:

• Mathematicians within 15 years of graduating from a university Mathematics degree, or
• Members of the IMA who do not have a degree and are within the first 15 years of the first time they joined the IMA

 

A call for sponsorship of the 50th Anniversary of the IMA

The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2014. This is a first call for interested parties to become involved in the support and sponsorship of events to publicise mathematics and the hugely important role that it plays in the modern world, together with the 50 years of support to mathematics and mathematicians given by the IMA. Sponsors of the IMA events will have a unique opportunity to raise their profile and address the wider mathematics community: students, teachers, early career graduates, and professional mathematicians within commercial sectors, public sectors and academia. Through doing this they will both position themselves centrally within this important national community and align their company with the excellence and aspirations of mathematics and its applications.

The IMA at 50

To celebrate 50 years of achievement, the IMA plans an exciting series of events during 2014. These will look forward to the developments and limitless opportunities for the applications of mathematics in the next 50 years and celebrate the achievements of the past. Plans include regional meetings, competitions and a book, but most importantly:

Mathematics for Everyone at Manchester: a look to the future involving academia, schools and industry aimed to enthuse the next generation of mathematicians

An afternoon of mathematics at the Royal Society, London: celebrating the last 50 years

These events are an exciting and unique opportunity to celebrate the centrality of mathematics in modem life, and the role played by the IMA in its development.

Sponsorship and Involvement

We are seeking sponsorship and involvement from all users of mathematics: to support the planned events (contributions from £10,000), and encourage younger participants through prizes at the events and online (contributions in the order of £5,000). Early sponsorship will give you high profile in all of the advertisement materials and promotional events directed at a wide number of participants in academia, schools and industry in the two year build up to the anniversary, as well as a high profile in the events during 2014. It will also guarantee a permanent record of your support in the published book.

Sustainability

We also want to make sure that we produce a continuing legacy for mathematics. Therefore our fundraising target will also consider sustainability and, of the funds that we will raise, 40% will be used in 2014 and 60% over the following three years.

I do hope that you will feel able to sponsor our IMA Golden Jubilee!
To contact us to discuss how you could be involved email the IMA Executive Director, David Youdan david.youdan@ima.org.uk and the IMA@50 coordinator Chris Budd, mascjb@bath.ac.uk

Professor Robert MacKay FRS FInstP C Math FIMA
IMA President

A maths afternoon in Nottingham: game shows and sport

Some of the audience waiting to enter the Maths Inspiration show

On Thursday I spent an enjoyable afternoon with Rob Eastaway in Nottingham. I attended the Maths Inspiration show at the Nottingham Playhouse, which featured talks by Chris Budd (IMA Vice President) on man-made climate change (is it really happening? The section of the audience near me thought so but Chris told me he heard quite a lot of "no"s), Mike Fletcher on game shows and Steve Mould on various topics. Helen Pilcher was acting as compere and Rob was in charge behind the scenes.
All the talks were excellent and it was pleasing to see a 700 seater theatre sold out with years 11, 12 and 13 for a show about mathematics (see photo above). I found Mike Fletcher's talk particularly interesting. He discussed game shows from the point of view of a recent news story, which we covered on the Math/Maths Podcast episode 88, that several game shows are being investigated by the Gambling Commission as possibly not containing enough skill to be operated without a gambling licence.

Mike took us through Play Your Cards Right, apparently due for a relaunch and one of the shows mentioned in the Gambling Commission story. I thought predicting whether the next card will be higher or lower in face value than the current card involved minimal skill, but Mike made a convincing argument otherwise. There's a lot more to the game than I realised because you can at times choose to swap the card you are playing for another from the deck or force your opponent to play, and all the cards are chosen from a single deck.

Showing various aspects of strategy, involving basic and conditional probabilities, Mike said if you played the game mathematically you could expect go home with the car about 3 times in 10. Statistically, he said, contestants win the car about 1 time in 10, which I think is a fairly convincing indication that there is a skill involved that people are generally lacking, but which can be learned.

In the evening Rob Eastaway gave his talk 'From Lampard to the Olympics' based on his book with John Haigh The Hidden Maths of Sport (review at Plus). This was an interesting and enjoyable talk, despite my relative dis-interest in sport, and well attended by a capacity audience of nearly 70. Rob made a point of avoiding discussion purely of the relatively well know use of statistics in sport. He gave examples of various mathematical topics in cricket, football, rugby, darts, tennis, basketball, athletics and American football. I don't want to give away the details, but you should look out for Rob speaking near you or pick up a copy of his book for further details.

Rob Eastaway doing a live 'ball game' based demo at his talk.

The next East Midlands Branch talk will be The Mathematics Magic Show by Peter McOwan on Wednesday 16 May 2012 at the University of Leicester. Peter is a researcher in computer vision with an amateur interest in magic, a combination that has led to research into visual illusions and outreach work with mathematics and magic. The meeting is preceded by a short AGM at 7.10pm (for those who are interested) before the talk at 7.30pm. No charge is made to attend meetings, non-IMA members are welcome.

Update (24/03/2012): Updated list of sports covered in Rob's talk, thanks to Mike Black on Twitter for filling in the gaps in my memory.

Mathematics Matters - a crucial contribution to the country's economy

Yesterday, 15th March 2012, I had the opportunity to attend the Mathematics Matters seminar hosted by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee in collaboration with the Council for Mathematical Sciences. The aim of the event was to promote the role played by mathematics and mathematicians in society.

The session began with Prof. Sir Adrian Smith (standing in for an apologetic David Willetts MP). Prof Smith began by saying that David Willetts and the government are well aware of the importance of mathematics and the part it plays in key national and strategic priorities. It was pointed out that whilst maths is becoming a more popular subject to study at university we are still not producing enough graduates to satisfy demand.

Prof. David Spiegelhalter spoke next on his role in educating the public and press in how to use statistics correctly. This was partly based on the recent tabloid headlines concerning scares over red meat. David also talked about the mathematics of risk and how the national risk register has changed to incorporate new risks such as disruption caused by volcanic ash.

Malcolm MacCallum, Director of the Heilbronn Institute in Bristol, gave a fascinating talk about Tutte and Flowers' contribution to the deciphering of messages encrypted by the Tunny machine using Colossus.

After a break for refreshments the session resumed with Deirdre Hollingsworth presenting work on the modelling of epidemics and the use of vaccination. She continued with a mathematical model showing how the use of bed-nets and interior spraying can significantly reduce the spread of malaria amongst children in Africa.

The final talk was from Professor Jared Tanner, who just managed to arrive in time from fog-bound Edinburgh, about the mathematics used to fill in missing data in photographs. He showed how this had implications in tracking movement and taking MRI scans of young children.

The session was summed up by Stephen Timms MP and followed by a short time of discussion during which the following points were raised:

There is a need to increase public awareness of the use of mathematics and to encourage more to study it beyond A-level;

There is no parliamentary group for mathematics;

Because of the nature of the subject it is not always possible to foresee the possible impact of research.

This was a very enjoyable morning that I hope will improve awareness of the need to increase the numbers of undergraduates and post-graduate mathematicians in our universities.

Pi day at Kingswood School

Yesterday was Pi day (the 14th day of the 3rd month - 3.14 if you're using that dating system). Plus Magazine have a roundup of some pi-themed material. I celebrated with a blog post How to calculate π.

Meanwhile, Garrod Musto, IMA Council member and Head of Mathematics at Kingswood School in Bath, enjoyed pi day with his students. One of his year 10 students created a pi day poem which Garrod sent to me to share via this blog.

The best smelling food has its own day,
A day when Mr Musto brought in cup cakes on a tray,
If you still don’t know the date I’ll continue with the clues,
I’ll carry on going with my poem chocolates the last thing I’d want to lose,
What’s the sexiest number in Australians eyes?
What number goes around as a symbol for a disguise?
It looks like a table with a curly leg,
Or if you turn it round it looks like a peg,
Its 3.14 backwards if you take a look,
William Shanks found the first 707 digits no matter how many years it took,
The first 144 digits all add up to six hundred and sixty six,
To screw up completely only one number has to be a miss,
People drove themselves mad trying to figure it out,
They had no way of cheating if they were in doubt,
The first million decimal places consist of 99,959 zeros, 99,758 1s, 100,026 2s,
William Shanks lost a few numbers for him to lose,
The biggest number so powerful alone,
The biggest number I’ve even know,
You still don’t know the date,
On which all mathematical geniuses celebrate,
So many people taken the problem to their grave,
Try and remember them if you’re brave,
Go ahead and give it a Try,
Remember the thousands of numbers which all make pie

David Nelson on mathematical dictionaries

On Friday, the East Midlands Branch welcomed David Nelson for a talk "Two Dictionaries of Mathematics, 1679 and 1989" at the University of Nottingham.

I was lucky enough to spend a little time with David before and after his talk. He was full of anecdotes from his varied career (including the time he convinced a young man named Ian Stewart to write a book about chaos). He was interviewed in 2010 by Terry Edwards for the IMA members' publication Mathematics Today. (Those with copies will find this interview printed in two parts in vol. 46, iss. 6, pp. 292-295 and vol. 47, iss. 1, pp. 32-35.) This records David as:

A mathematician, publishing editor (including the Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics), musician, educationalist and in the context of mathematics, a psychologist and historian.

In his talk, David spoke about Joseph Moxon’s Mathematicks made Easie: or, a Mathematical Dictionary Explaining the Terms of Art and Difficult Phrases used in Arithmetick, Geometry, Astronomy, Astrology, and other Mathematical Sciences (1679), the first mathematical dictionary to be published in English. You can view some pages from this book at Abebooks.co.uk (although the pricetag, at £895, will be a little high for most!). The pictures are from the second edition, much enlarged in 1692 following Moxon's death (also, despite his title, the version David showed in his talk).

Wikipedia reports (mostly confirmed by my memory of David's talk):

Joseph Moxon (1627-1700) was a London dealer and printer, specialising in mathematical books and instruments, a globe maker, amateur in the mechanical arts, hydrographer to Charles II, and Fellow of the Royal Society, the first tradesman to be so elected. He was the first to produce a dictionary devoted to mathematics in the English language.

David used this dictionary to take us on a tour of early dictionaries of mathematics (in English and otherwise).

The second dictionary in David's talk was one he edited, the Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics, now in its greatly expanded fourth edition. David explained some of the process of attracting contributions and putting together such an undertaking.

On the subject of mathematical reference, before the talk I wondered idly on Twitter: "These days, what would you use to look up an unknown mathematical term or concept?" Early replies came in for Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, Twitter and "The Princeton companion to Mathematics", so I set up a poll. This is wholly unscientific, not least because it was effectively a poll of Twitter users, but the results (100 responses) were:

• Do a web search: 35%;
• Wolfram Alpha: 13%;
• Wikipedia: 28%;
• Ask on a social network eg Twitter: 5%;
• Look in a book: 16%;
• Other: 3%.

The most common response was to do a web search or look on Wikipedia. David addressed this point in his talk, admitting that he does use Wikipedia at times and that the availability of such online tools has affected sales of the book in more recent editions. I was surprised that as many as 16% responding to my poll would consult a book. David said that many people had told him they still keep a copy of the Penguin dictionary on their desks. Actually, given the availability of curated definitions, written by experts and edited for style, plus the serendipity of stumbling across other definitions while searching, I left the talk fairly well convinced of the value of a printed dictionary as well.

The next IMA East Midlands Branch talk will be The Hidden Maths of Sport by Rob Eastaway on 22nd March 2012, also at the University of Nottingham. Further Branch talks are available via the IMA website. 

University of Greenwich sign up over 100 IMA e-Students

Erica Tyson (IMA University Liaison Officer) visited the University of Greenwich today to speak to maths students about the benefits of joining the IMA. This visit was part of a project funded by an HEA Teaching Development Grant aimed at enhancing students' employability skills. Project leader, Dr Nadarajah Ramesh said "engagement with professional bodies such as the IMA is very important for today's maths students".

Erica also spoke to the students about maths careers and how to apply for graduate jobs. She mentioned the Maths Careers website as being an excellent place to find out more information.

After Erica's talks to both first and second year students, over 100 University of Greenwich maths students signed up to join the IMA e-Student community. Noel-Ann Bradshaw, principal lecturer and IMA member, said that she thought the e-Student scheme was an excellent idea and hoped that many of their students would attend IMA events and go on to take up full membership in the future.

For more information about the role of the University Liaison Officer and the e-student scheme look on the student IMA webpage.