News

What Planck saw

Cosmologists gathered in the Netherlands last week to discuss a new view of the Universe. The Universe as seen by Planck was an international conference to discuss the recently released scientific results from the Planck satellite, including two particularly striking snapshots of the early Universe.

Are the laws of physics changing?

Find out why physicists believe that they might be in a lecture by John D. Barrow at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution on April 13th.

Happy birthday, Paul Erdős!

Here's a fitting tribute to the legendary mathematician Paul Erdős, who would have turned 100 today.

The Abel Prize 2013

This year's Abel Prize has been awarded to the Belgian mathematician Pierre Deligne for "seminal contributions to algebraic geometry and for their transformative impact on number theory, representation theory, and related fields".

Come and meet mathematical women (and Plus) in Lancaster!

Want to meet some inspirational female mathematicians? Then come to the Florence Nightingale Day at Lancaster University on April 17.

We want your maths images!

We're looking for inspiring images that illustrate your favourite mathematical ideas. Illustrations, photographs, computer simulations or even clever doodles — anything that's colourful and inspirational. The best fifty images will be used as part of a book fifty to be published by Oxford University Press to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA).

Maths in a minute: The missing pound

Here's a well-known conundrum: suppose I need to buy a book from a shop that costs £7. I haven't got any money, so I borrow £5 from my brother and £5 from my sister. I buy the book and get £3 change. I give £1 back to each my brother and sister and I keep the remaining £1. I now owe each of them £4 and I have £1, giving £9 in total. But I borrowed £10. Where's the missing pound?

Happy pi day, Albert!

What a lovely coincidence! Pi day (the 14th of March, written 3/14 in the US) is also Albert Einstein's birthday. How are you going to celebrate? .

Imagine a planet made of mathematics....

Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013 is a year-­long international effort highlighting the contributions made by mathematics in the study of global planetary problems: migrations, climate change, sustainability, natural disasters, pandemics... and in the search for solutions.

Maths in a minute: Newton's laws of motion

We've been dabbling a lot in the mysterious world of quantum physics lately, so to get back down to Earth we thought we'd bring you reminder of good old classical physics.

Maths in a minute: Complex numbers

Solving equations often involves taking square roots of numbers and if you're not careful you might accidentally take a square root of something that's negative. That isn't allowed of course, but if you hold your breath and just carry on, then you might eventually square the illegal entity again and end up with a negative number that's a perfectly valid solution to your equation.

  • Want facts and want them fast? Our Maths in a minute series explores key mathematical concepts in just a few words.

  • What do chocolate and mayonnaise have in common? It's maths! Find out how in this podcast featuring engineer Valerie Pinfield.

  • Is it possible to write unique music with the limited quantity of notes and chords available? We ask musician Oli Freke!

  • How can maths help to understand the Southern Ocean, a vital component of the Earth's climate system?

  • Was the mathematical modelling projecting the course of the pandemic too pessimistic, or were the projections justified? Matt Keeling tells our colleagues from SBIDER about the COVID models that fed into public policy.

  • PhD student Daniel Kreuter tells us about his work on the BloodCounts! project, which uses maths to make optimal use of the billions of blood tests performed every year around the globe.