Maths events featuring international visitors attract hundreds to UNSW

The School of Mathematics and Statistics kicked off the first week of Semester 2 with three public events, attracting several hundred attendees.

On Monday 27 July, we welcomed Professor Michael Shelley of New York University, who is the 2015 Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) Lecturer. He is touring Australia over the coming weeks to talk about his research on complex phenomena arising in biophysics, computational science, and the fluid dynamics of flying and swimming.

Professor Shelley spoke to a group comprised of School members, UNSW students, and students from other Sydney-based universities. Read more about Professor Shelley's talk.

On Tuesday evening we held a public lecture in the Scientia's Tyree Room, featuring a presentation by Professor Alexander Bobenko of Technische Universität Berlin entitled "The Discrete Charm of Geometry". The talk drew a diverse crowd of 90 people, ranging from UNSW staff and students, other Sydney-based university students, local high school teachers, high school students, UNSW alumni and members of the public.

Professor Bobenko screened his award-winning animated documentary "Conform!", which aims to build a bridge from "everyday experience to a beautiful but little-known mathematical theory that continues to bear technological fruit today in fields such as computer graphics and architecture". The film will be available to a wider audience later in the year. 

The critically acclaimed film "Colors of Math" made its Australian debut on Wednesday night to 200 viewers at UNSW's Ritchie Theatre. Director/Producer Ekaterina Eremenko joined us all the way from Berlin to present this special screening. The premiere viewing generated a buzz and consequently enticed a broad audience of UNSW staff members, UNSW students, members of the public, primary and high school students, and academic staff and students from neighbouring universities.

The one-hour film features six very different mathematicians: Cédric Villani, Anatoly Fomenko, Aaditya V. Rangan, Günter M. Ziegler, Jean-Michel Bismut, and Maxim Kontsevich, and demonstrates that maths can be sensual, and can be perceived with all of our senses. Ekaterina answered several questions about the film from audience members, and provided a very interesting commentary of the film.

Thank you to all who attended this week's events, and a very special thank you to our speakers and presenters: Michael Shelley, Alexander Bobenko and Ekaterina Eremenko.