(above) Autumn colours beside INI's main entrance.

INI NEWS BULLETIN
October 2019

Dear friends, associates and supporters of INI,

Welcome to the October 2019 edition of our monthly news bulletin. In this release you will find the following seven stories:

1. NEW SCIENTIST LIVE: for the third year running, INI showcased UK mathematics to 40,000+ visitors at the "world's greatest science festival".
2. KIRK FELLOWSHIPS: read and listen to inspiring interviews with all five women mathematicians awarded the inaugural Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowships.
3. PODCASTS OF THE MONTH: three fascinating talks ranging from mathematical patterns within music, to the joy of running, to the importance of peer support within academia.
4. KIRK TALK VIDEO: watch Professor Donatella Marini's recent lecture on the Virtual Element Method.
5. ATIYAH CELEBRATION: images from the recent event honouring the late Sir Michael Atiyah's "Forays into Physics".
6. REMEMBERING ELMER REES: a farewell to a previous Chair of INI's Scientific Steering Committee.
7. FORTHCOMING WORKSHOPS/TALKS/EVENTS: a guide to the coming month at INI.

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Contact: communications@newton.ac.uk

Participants in the workshop "Complex analysis in mathematical physics and applications", 28 October - 1 November 2019.

1. NEW SCIENTIST LIVE: for the third year running, INI showcased UK mathematics to 40,000+ visitors at the "world's greatest science festival".

(above) INI staff member Paul Brabbins helps a New Scientist Live attendee (plus parent) solve a branded puzzle cube at this year's show.

For the third time since 2017, INI and the Newton Gateway to Mathematics took part in the New Scientist Live exposition at London's ExCel centre. Combined on a single stand alongside three other partners (the Operational Research Society, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences), the Institute and Gateway embraced this unparalleled opportunity for public engagement to spread awareness of the UK's vibrant mathematics community and its own role within it.

Between the five partners, close to 8,000 branded puzzle cubes were distributed to show visitors over its four-day run, whilst the "Summer Maths Puzzles" (see below) initiative was used to further engage attendees in the pleasure of basic mathematical problem solving. Thanks in large part to 13 different volunteers from amongst INI and Gateway staff, the stand was expertly run and myriad conversations and engagements of potentially highly significant outcome with visitors of all ages were undertaken.

According to the New Scientist Live team's own figures, over 120 talks across the event's seven stages took place throughout the long weekend, 150 exhibits were present and more than 40,000 "professionals, families and science lovers" were in attendance.

2. KIRK FELLOWSHIPS: read and listen to inspiring interviews with all five women mathematicians awarded the inaugural Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowships.

(above) The five recipients of this year's Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowship: (L to R) Svitlana Mayboroda, Irene Fonseca, Claudia Sagastizabal, Donatella Marini, Lesley Ward.

As covered in previous bulletins, 2019 has seen the establishment of the Kirk Distinguished Visting Fellowships scheme. This fellowship has provided funding for one senior and influential mathematician per programme in the style of the existing Rothschild Distinguished Visiting Fellowships, but with the recipients being chosen from under-represented groups within higher mathematical research. In this first year of the Fellowship, all five recipients have been women - a move which INI hopes will help to address the historical gender imbalance that persists within the science.

As each of the five mathematicians has visited the Institute we have endeavoured to interview each one. That project is now complete and, through two written and three audio interviews (as well as with an extra written interview with Dr Ewan Kirk whose generous £250,000 donation made the scheme possible), we hope that you will enjoy learning about each of these remarkable people and the important research contributions they have made during their time at INI.

Please click the following links or the green button below to discover more about the 2019 Kirk Fellows, in their own words.

> INTERVIEW: click here to read Dr Ewan Kirk's thoughts on on research, philanthropy and the the foundation of the Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowships scheme

> INTERVIEW: click here to read Professor Claudia Sagastizabal on renewable energy, the "science of betterment" and punting in circles

> INTERVIEW: click here to read Professor Donatella Marini on virtual element methods, talented women and collaborative working

> PODCAST #7: click here to listen to Professor Irene Fonseca discuss the power of academic interactions, the obligations placed upon high-achieving females, and a love of painting

> PODCAST #9: click here to listen to Professor Svitlana Mayboroda discuss the draw of harmonic analysis and a love of mathematics for its own sake   

> PODCAST #18: click here to listen to Associate Professor Lesley Ward discuss complex analysis, the value of peer support and "the ability to develop agency"

3. PODCASTS OF THE MONTH: three fascinating talks ranging from mathematical patterns within music, to the joy of running, to the importance of peer support within academia.

We are able to offer three fascinating podcast interviews this month - one of which includes the rare pleasure of listening to the interviewee's world-class classical piano playing.

Please click the links or the green button below to find out more, search for "Isaac Newton Institute" on your app of choice or find us on iTunes here.
 

In episode #16 of the podcast, Dan Aspel speaks to Georgian pianist Tamara Kokilashvili who has performed celebrated classical recitals across the world from Tbilisi to Vienna and New York. Tamara's husband Professor Lasha Ephremidze was a participant in the 2019 "Wiener-Hopf" programme, but her connections to the world of mathematics run deeper than that having played a key part in her upbringing and continuing to inform and enrich her love of mathematical patterns within music.

[introductory and outro music taken from a performance by Tamara at Corpus Christie College, Cambridge, August 2019]

00:00 – Introductory music
02:11 – Growing up in a family of musical mathematicians, “a harmonic universe”
03:42 – Life in Georgia, turning to ballet, concerts and the piano
06:56 – Playing music for mathematicians, “they understand music best”
11:21 – Explaining a love of the piano and music in general
13:46 – Performing in Corpus Christi chapel in Cambridge, “this legendary place”
16:19 – Outro music

In episode 17, Dan Aspel speaks to Dr Tony Hill (King's College London) about his life within mathematics so far and how a devotion to long-distance running has played, and continues to play, its part in that journey.

00:00 – Introduction: “an imposter at INI”?
03:20 – Attending an INI workshop on the Weiner-Hopf technique
05:55 – Charity work: raising funds for the families of terminally ill children
07:00 – A history of running and walking, from athletics tracks to ridgeways
10:20 – The link between exercise and the thought process, “your mind becomes free of all the day–to-day distractions”
12:20 – Memory and place, entwined
14:50 – Plans for the future

In episode 18 Dan Aspel speaks to Associate Professor Lesley Ward (University of South Australia) about her work within the fields of Complex Analysis and Harmonic Analysis, her experience of working at INI, her feelings upon being awarded the Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowship, and the ongoing need for support of women in mathematics if the historical gender imbalance in the science is to be redressed.

00:00 - Introduction
01:00 - Early life in South Australia and the United States
02:50 – Work with Complex Analysis and Harmonic Analysis, theoretical and industry-based
04:18 – lecturing within the INI “Complex Analysis” programme (“there are a lot of questions”)
07:30 – “High level interaction with people of other disciplines”
10:35 – Feelings on receiving the Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowship
12:15 – Peer support groups for women in maths (“just feeling that you’re not alone is helpful”)
13:35 – “There was no ‘existence proof’ that one could become an academic mathematician and a woman at the same time. We had literally never seen that”
15:10 – Advice for operating support groups: “the ability to develop agency”
17:20 – Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
19:45 – The ongoing challenges for underrepresented groups
22:27 – The experience of living in Cambridge and working at INI

4. KIRK TALK VIDEO: watch Professor Donatella Marini's recent lecture on the Virtual Element Method.

(above) Professor Donatella Marini of the "Geometry, compatibility and structure preservation in computational differential equations" programme.

On Monday 21 October, Professor Donatella Marini delivered her Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowship lecture "A recent technology for Scientific Computing: the Virtual Element Method". Please click the green button below to watch a video recording of the talk in full.

The Virtual Element Method (VEM) is a recent technology for the numerical solution of boundary value problems for Partial Differential Equations. It could be seen as a generalization of the Finite Element Method (FEM). With FEM the computational domain is typically split in triangles/quads (tetrahedra/hexahedra). VEM responds to the recent interest in using decompositions into polygons/polyhedra of very general shape, whenever more convenient for the approximation of problems of practical interest. Indeed,the possibility of using general polytopal meshes opens up a new range of opportunities in terms of accuracy, efficiency and flexibility. This is for instance reflected by the fact that various (commercial and free) codes recently included and keep developing polytopal meshes, showing in selected applications an improved computational efficiency with respect to tetrahedral or hexahedral grids. In this talk, after a general description of the use and potential of Scientific Computing, basic ideas of conforming VEM will be described on a simple model problem. Numerical results on more general problems in two and three dimension will be shown. Hints on Serendipity versions will be given at the end. These procedures allow to decrease significantly the number of degrees of freedom, that is, to reduce the dimension of the final linear system.

5. ATIYAH CELEBRATION: images from the recent event honouring the late Sir Michael Atiyah, "Forays into Physics".

(above) Sir Michael Atiyah's sons David and Robin Atiyah.

On Friday 25 October the Institute was proud to host the event "Sir Michael Atiyah: Forays into Physics", a celebration of Sir Michael's contributions beyond the strictly mathematical sciences and following the sad news of his passing in January of this year. As he was also INI's founding Director this was a particularly meaningful occasion for the Institute.

The event was well attended by those who knew and worked with Sir Michael, as well as by those who admired and continue to admire his significant work, and by members of his immediate family (see images). Participants in the event were also invited to attend the memorial service for Sir Michael at Trinity College Chapel the following day.

Talks given included:

• Sir Roger Penrose: "Michael Atiyah's roles in the drive towards a twistor theory of physics"
• Nigel Hitchin: "Gravitational instantons and cubic surfaces"
• Paul Sutcliffe: "Solitons and points"
• Matilde Marcolli: "Anyons, networks, and codes in geometric models of matter"
• Nick Manton: "Skyrmions"

We would like to warmly thank all those present for their time and contributions to the day.

(above) Sir Roger Penrose.
(below) Professor Matilde Marcolli.

(below) Extended family of Sir Michael Atiyah.

6. REMEMBERING ELMER REES: a farewell to a previous Chair of INI's Scientific Steering Committee.

(above) a 1973 image of Professor Elmer Rees.

The Institute was saddened to hear of the passing of Professor Elmer Rees on 4 October 2019. Professor Rees was Chair of INI's Scientific Steering Committee for seven years between 1998 and 2005 and also Chair of INI's National Advisory Board between its formation in 1999 and disbandment in 2007. He was noted for his great contributions to numerous academic institutes ranging from the London Mathematical Society to the Heilbronn Institute of Mathematical Research (of which he was founding Director).

More details are available via the green button below. Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends and others that knew him best.

7. FORTHCOMING WORKSHOPS/TALKS/EVENTS: looking forward to the month ahead at INI.

> Newton Gateway Workshop: The Future of Distributed Ledger Technology 6 November 2019

> Newton Gateway Workshop: Cantab Capital Institute for the Mathematics of Information - Connecting with Industry 27 November 2019

As a reminder: the selection of non-workshop-based seminars undertaken as part of the current programmes can be found - and in most cases live streamed or viewed after the event - via the seminars link below.

See all forthcoming INI events here: https://www.newton.ac.uk/events/calendar

See all forthcoming INI seminars here: https://www.newton.ac.uk/events/seminars