The London Mathematical Society will be 150 years old in a couple of years, and we mathematicians always bang on about how maths takes a long time to have impact in the wider world, so they’re asking for examples of maths done in the last 150 years that’s had an impact outside academia.

Read more about it at the start of the February newsletter (PDF), or email John Greenlees at Sheffield if you’ve got any ideas. Thinking up suitable examples might be a good way of taking your mind off the REF, if you’re currently grappling with that particular fractal of bad ideas.