Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics

Tuesday 22nd July Dr Behrang Noohi Cryptography – Lecture Secure Communication How can one send a secret message? Steganography vs. Cryptography; Kerckhoff Principle Steganography is the art or practice of concealing a message, image, or file within another message, image, or file. The word steganography combines the Ancient Greek words steganos, meaning “covered, concealed, or […]

Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics

Tuesday 22nd July Dr Rosemary Harris From Applied Maths to Transport Modelling (via non-equilibrium statistical mechanics) Transport processes Traffic, ants and molecular motors http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/08/traffic-radio-service-cut http://lakecountynature.com/2013/06/18/ant-parade/ http://www.ruben-group.de/home.html Stochastic Markovian dynamics In probability theory and statistics, a Markov process or Markoff process, named after the Russian mathematician Andrey Markov, is a stochastic process that satisfies the Markov […]

Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics

Tuesday 22nd July Networks Dr Mark Walters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percolation_theory In mathematics, percolation theory describes the behaviour of connected clusters in a random graph. The above image shows a three-dimensional site percolation graph. Consider the two dimensional graph below showing islands in a river connected by bridges. Imagine that each bridge has a half chance of getting […]

Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics

Tuesday 22nd July Latin Squares and related combinatorial designs Professor L H Soicher Recreational maths can lead to lots of different applications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku Sudoku (originally called Number Place, is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9 × 9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of […]

Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics

Monday 21st July Hyper-complex numbers Dr Alex Fink but why stop there? Mind your is and js and ks What happens when you go beyond complex numbers? Answer: Going further means sacrificing some properties of numbers such as A complex number is a number that can be expressed in the form a + bi, where […]

Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics

Monday 21st July Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors Dr Robert Johnson This is a subject that students find very difficult to get motivated with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenvalues_and_eigenvectors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E63wnzYHYc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4N8vJpf7hM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdsV0RaC9jM http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/23312/what-is-the-importance-of-eigenvalues-eigenvectors http://anothermathgeek.hubpages.com/hub/What-the-Heck-are-Eigenvalues-and-Eigenvectors An eigenvalue is a number that is derived from a square matrix. A square matrix is itself just a collection of n rows of n numbers. An […]

Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics

http://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/charity-education/education/science-for-society-courses/mathematics/ Monday 21st July Introduction This course took place in the mathematical sciences building of Queen Mary University of London. It looked at the mathematics behind applications as diverse as cryptography, drug testing and the internet. The course included a mix of lectures and workshops, with an introduction to mathematical computing using the Maple package […]

Begbroke Nano Teachers’ Day

Tour of the Laboratories http://www.begbroke.ox.ac.uk/SiteMap.php Dr Frank Dillon kindly let us have a look at his laboratory and talked to us about nanotubes and his work with them. He joined the Nanomaterials Group in the Department of Materials, Oxford University in July 2008. He is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and of […]

Girls in Physics

It’s Different for Girls How can parents support the take-up of A-level physics by girls? A briefing sheet Research published by the Institute of Physics shows that a shocking 46% of schools in England sent no girls on to study A-level physics in 2011. Physics graduates earn salaries well above the average and the subject […]

Begbroke Nano Teachers’ Day

Solar cells http://cnx.org/contents/dd0537a2-fb5d-439d-8feb-bf2e50656dae@1 Semiconductor solar cells In physics lessons we tend to just look at semiconductor solar cells. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell A solar cell (also called a photovoltaic cell) is an electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. It is a form of photoelectric cell, defined as a device […]