The Aperiodical 

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Macro December

By Peter Rowlett. Posted January 19, 2010

The last two blog posts have attempted to catch up this blog on October and November. This post will be an attempt to bring December up to date.

I started the month by giving a lecture at Nottingham on subsitution ciphers for the History of maths and x and recording this using the in-room capture system. This is by no means the best recording I have ever seen but it is a rough and ready approach which involves no cost (to me for the recording – obviously the kit cost money to set up). The talk was advertised through the Nottingham Mathsoc and I was nervous about the number that would turn up. I didn’t want very many – although I have spoken to fairly large audiences I am not accustomed to being recorded speaking and this added to my nerves – but I wanted the number to be greater than zero so I had an audience to judge my timings against and react to. Anyway, the recording seemed to go well and the result is available to view on this blog and elsewhere.

The next day I began a trip along the south coast. I started by going to Brighton to give my careers talk. This went well and I headed to Portsmouth to set up camp. The following day I was the opening speaker at a Portsmouth careers day and this went well, then I headed to Surrey to meet the new student society there over lunch. I returned in the late afternoon to Portsmouth to watch some alumni give talks (look out for a couple of upcoming podcast episodes). It seems the student maths society at Portsmouth is called Portsmath and the membership fee is £3.14, which I found pleasantly geeky. Finally, in the evening, I headed to Southampton and gave my cryptography talk – the first pop maths talk put on by a usually more party-oriented society there.

The following week I took a trip to the South West. In Exeter I stayed in a hotel with a giant Christmas tree outside my window, it being nearly Christmas. I went to Exeter university to hold a careers stall and give my careers talk. Unfortunately the stall was fairly poorly attended – I think I saw 13 maths students in twos and threes over a 2 hour period – and my talk broke a new record for size of audience with only 2 students in attendance. The talk went well anyway and I was reminded it is quality, not quantity, but being so far from home I felt like I was experiencing very inefficient use of my time. The following day I went to Plymouth and was well looked after while I gave my final careers talk of the year to a nice response.

In preparing my 6-monthly report for the IMA I realised that in the nine week period 7 Oct-10 Dec 2009 just over 1100 people had seen me give 32 talks at 28 universities and 150 have spoken to me at 3 universities when I have operated careers stalls. This feels very pleasing.

At the end of the year my 6-month IMA review and annual appraisal both went well, I received my copy of iSquared issue 10 containing my article “Ciphers through the ages” (to accompany my History of maths and x video on the same topic) just before Christmas and the podcast was on its half century episode with Sebastien Guenneau on invisibility cloaks. So it is we move into 2010 (or is it MMX?) hoping the blog will keep proper time this year and not need periodic catching up!

Mathematics Today October: University Liaison Officer’s Report

By Peter Rowlett. Posted September 29, 2009

Keeping in touch

The nature of university life means that the undergraduate students I engage with are only likely to be around for a limited period of time. This engagement is usually though either a student run society or through a student member of a staff/student liaison committee. The end of one academic year and transition to the next is a potentially dangerous time for this engagement with students leaving their role within the department or society or even graduating and leaving the university altogether. I have spent some time at the end of the academic year trying to maintain contact with the students and societies I have had a relationship with, making contact with the next years students where possible. By the end of the last academic year I was in contact with student representatives or societies at 20 universities. If I lose contact with these I will start academic year 2009/10 back at square one in terms of student engagement and this is a large risk in the University Liaison role. On the staff side I hope the situation will be more stable. There are changes in staffing and staff roles though these are found in a much smaller number of cases.

At the time of writing I have made contact with next years students at 14 of the 20 universities I was in contact with last year and I consider this to be a good rate of return. My best information suggests there are 72 universities in the UK offering mathematics. I enter the new academic year with a prior relationship with a staff or student contact (or both) at 50 of them.

My thoughts now turn to planning my activities for the 2009/10 academic year. As in the previous academic year I will travel around the country offering my talk on careers for mathematicians and recreational mathematics lectures on various topics. I will also continue to operate on behalf of the IMA at careers fairs and postgraduate research conferences. In the last academic year I have visited 33 university mathematics departments and given talks and/or operated stalls at 23 of these. I am keen to increase these numbers next academic year! If you want to approach me with such an opportunity I would be very pleased to hear from you. I am also very interested to make contact with the 22 ‘missing’ universities so if you think I haven’t been in contact with your university please get in touch. You can email me on peter.rowlett@ima.org.uk. Another area where your university and the IMA can work together is University Liaison Grants to support student mathematical activities and there is more on this in the Student Section.

Activities July-August 2009

This period is the summer downtime and I used the opportunity to take much of my annual leave. Consequently my activities were lighter than usual in this period.

I attended the 3rd European Postgraduate Fluid Dynamics Conference at the University of Nottingham. This conference organised by and for postgraduate students was supported by an IMA Small Grant and I attended with a stall during the poster session and closing lunch. I believe the organisers are preparing a separate report on this conference. The materials on my stall included the Institute’s new Initial Professional Development (IPD) leaflet which explains to younger members what to do to start on the path to the Chartered designations. I travelled to Brighton for a visit to the School of Computing, Mathematical and Information Sciences at the University of Brighton and to attend a ceremony at that university in which IMA Prizes were awarded to two graduands. Finally I attended an Open University summer school on mathematical modelling and gave a version of my careers talk.