Tomorrow is the start of August, and if you’re anywhere near Edinburgh you’ll be aware that the city is already overrun with musicians, comedians and street performers plying their trade as part of the month-long Fringe festival. If you were wondering whether any of the shows were maths-related, the answer is yes! And we’ve saved you the hassle of searching the Fringe programme website for the word ‘maths’ and related terms – below is an outline of some maths-related shows you might enjoy.
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- Ursula Martin, Emeritus Professor in the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, becomes a Dame for services to Science and Education.
- Peter Cox, Professor of Climate System Dynamics in Mathematics, University of Exeter. Appointed CBE for services to Science and to Climate Modelling.
- Tim Cole, Professor Emeritus of Population, Health and Practice, Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, University College London. Appointed CBE for services to Medical Statistics.
- Philip Colligan, Chief Executive Officer, Raspberry Pi Foundation. Appointed CBE for services to Engineering and Technology for Societal Impact.
- Rowland Raymond Kao, Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology and Data Science, University of Edinburgh. Appointed CBE for services to Mathematics and Infectious Disease Dynamics.
- Emily Fleur Shuckburgh, Professor of Environmental Data Science and Director, Cambridge Zero, University of Cambridge. Appointed CBE for services to Climate Science and to the Public Communication of Climate Science.
- Davin Crowley-Sweet, Chief Data Officer, National Highways. Appointed OBE for services to the Safety of the Road Network.
- Alexander James Samuel Stewart, Senior Statistician, Office of the Chief Economic Adviser, Scottish Government. Appointed OBE for services to Scottish Economic Statistics.
- Richard Cracknell, Lately Head of Social and General Statistics, House of Commons. Appointed MBE for services to Parliament.
- Sarah Lowe, Senior Research Officer, Welsh Government. Appointed MBE for services to Data Research.
- Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Visiting Professor, University of Oxford. Appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to Astronomy and Physics and to Diversity.
- James Brown, Discipline Leader (Maths), University of Technology, Sydney. Appointed OBE for services to Statistics in the United Kingdom and internationally.
Particularly mathematical Birthday Honours 2025
The UK Government have announced the new set of King’s Birthday Honours. Here’s our selection of particularly mathematical entries for this year. If you spot any more, let us know in the comments and we’ll add to the list.
Get the full list from gov.uk. Spot anyone we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments.
Aperiodical News Roundup – April & May 2025
Here’s a round-up of all the mathematical news from the last couple of months we didn’t otherwise cover here.
A bit of inspiration from #MathArtMarch
This is a guest post by Elinor, who’s been collecting her favourite maths art from the month of March.
March is a month of change in the UK: the days get longer, the temperature is slowly creeping upwards, and we start to believe that spring may be arriving. Through this month of change I have been really enjoying all the #MathArtMarch posts that have been appearing on Mathstodon and Bluesky.
Aperiodical News Roundup – March 2025
Here’s a round-up of some mathematical and maths-related news that happened in March 2025 that we didn’t otherwise cover on the site.
Aperiodical News Roundup – Jan & Feb 2025
Here’s a round-up of a few news items from the last couple of months not otherwise covered on the site.
Aperiodical News Roundup – November & December 2024
Here’s a round-up of some news stories from the last two months of 2024, (mostly) not otherwise covered here on the Aperiodical.
Maths Research
At the start of December, John Carlos Baez shared on Mathstodon that the moving sofa problem may have been solved – the question of the largest possible shape you can fit around a 2D corner. For many years, a shape called Gerver’s sofa has been thought to be optimal, but an ArXiV paper from 29th November claims to have proved it is. More context in this blog post by Dan Romnik.
Depending on what you consider to be maths news, there were also reports that mathematicians have discovered a new type of cardinal numbers and a new kind of infinity.
And depending on what you consider to be good news, Terry Tao has also announced the creation of Renaissance Philanthropy and XTX Markets’ AI for Math fund, supporting projects that apply AI and machine learning to mathematics, with a focus on automated theorem proving. The deadline for initial expressions of interest is Jan 10, 2025.
Awards and Appointments
Computer algebra system PARI/GP has been awarded a CNRS prize “Prix science ouverte du logiciel libre de la recherche” (Open Science Awards for Free Software for Research). The awards highlight exceptional or very promising achievements, which can inspire the scientific community as well as society as a whole. An estimated user community of 25,000 people use PARI/GP regularly for research and hobbyist number theory. (via Rémi Eismann on SeqFan)
The other big news from last December was Hannah Fry’s appointment as Cambridge’s new Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics. She joined the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) on 1st January, and the role will involve communicating to diverse audiences, including with people not previously interested in maths. Fry follows in the footsteps of the late John Barrow, who informally took on the same role for much of his distinguished career.
“Communication is not an optional extra: if you are creating something that is used by, or interacts with members of the public or the world in general, then I think it’s genuinely your moral duty to engage the people affected by it. I’d love to build and grow a community around excellence in mathematical communication at Cambridge – so that we’re really researching the best possible methods to communicate with people.”
– Hannah Fry
Other news
From now until 11th February, Young Researcher applications for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2025 are open to any undergraduate/pre-master, PhD or PostDoc researchers who would like to join the highest level of mathematical laureates alongside hundreds of other researchers in maths and computer science for a week of talks, workshops and networking in the beautiful city of Heidelberg in September.