Mathematics in Industry New Zealand 2016

4-8 July 2016, at Victoria University of Welington.

Co-Director: Prof Mark McGuinness

Please come and join us at Victoria University of Wellington to solve interesting and vital industry challenges to help New Zealand businesses innovate and grow. The meeting is centered around a number of brainstorming problem-solving working groups, applying mathematics, statistics, physics and engineering principles to real problems brought by local businesses and industry.

More soon on the actual problems for this year. Free registration.

To express interest, contact admin@minz.org.nz

For more information please click on this link MINZ 2016, or look at the website http://www.minz.org.nz

There are some fascinating comments about these Study Groups on the YouTube clip https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBdlFHZ1WA4kiy3WQABUGjA

The New Zealand Mathematics and Statistics Postgraduate Conference (NZMASP), run this year by the University of Waikato in Taupo, is an annual event that provides students with the chance to present their research in a relaxed and supportive environment. NZMASP also enables students to socialize with other postgraduates from all corners of the country. This year, 12 students from Victoria University attended and presented a 20 minute presentation each about our various research topics in Statistics, Pure and Applied Mathematics. These talks were all well received however special mention must go to Deloshan Narawajan who won best overall talk and Roy Costilla who won best statistical talk.

Included in the conference was an excursion which allowed us to see the sights of Taupo. Some of us went to Huka falls before swimming in the lake, which was freezing, before the conference dinner. Overall I think we all enjoyed the conference and we are looking forward to next year held by Otago University.

Author: Emma Greenbank; Photo taken by: Nick Lim

Over a hundred high school students were put to the test this week during a day-long maths competition at Victoria University.

Run jointly by the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research and the Wellington Mathematics Association, the competition gave students from ten schools around the Wellington region the chance to work on challenging mathematical problems.

“It’s a great, fun event with plenty of prizes and challenges. Students travelled from as far as Paraparaumu to participate”, says organiser and School Liaison Rebecca Burke.

Students were quizzed with short Olympiad-style questions in the morning, followed by a large multifaceted problem in the afternoon.

Wellington College were named winners, ahead of Onslow College and another team from Wellington College who placed second equal.

Impressed with the efforts of all the teams, the judging panel—consisting of academics and postgraduates led by one of the School’s Rutherford Discovery Fellows, Dillon Mayhew—also named Chilton Saint James School as Most Consistent, and Scots College as the best Team Player.

The event, first run in 2014, aims to bridge the gap between high school students and University, as well as provide an opportunity to hear from graduate students and learn what Victoria’s maths programmes offer.

Rebecca hopes the event will continue to run annually and grow bigger.

“Despite being held during school holidays we received a great turn out, with bigger numbers than last year. There is a demand for this kind of event and it would be great to reach out to even more College students.”

Rod Downey, one of the world’s leading experts on the theory of computation and a Professor in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research, has been talking about the work of computing pioneer and Bletchley Park code-breaker extraordinaire Alan Turing.

An interview with Rod on Alan Turing’s life, work and influence, as well as his portrayal in the recent movie 'The Imitation game’, is to be aired on Our Changing World at 9pm on Thursday 12 March. A longer audio version of the talk is available at: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld

In February, Rod also gave a public lecture 'Alan Turing, Computing, Bletchley and Mathematics’. A recording of the talk is available here

Slides accompanying the lecture are also available at http://homepages.ecs.vuw.ac.nz/~downey/turing_15.pdf

Summer Research Scholarships are on offer across the Faculty of Science, including through the Antarctic Research Centre, Robinson Research Institute and Ferrier Research Institute. Some are externally funded and will involve students working with external organisations around Wellington. Applications for the 2014/2015 round are now open, and are due on the 1st of October. For more information please click here

Nearly a hundred mathematicians-in-the-making from Wellington high schools were put to the test this week as they competed in a day-long maths competition at Victoria University.

Run jointly by the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research and the Wellington Mathematics Association, the competition gave students a chance to work on mathematical problems that are quite different from those studied in school.

Dr Dillon Mayhew, a senior lecturer in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research, says students often get the impression that mathematics is all about applying rules. “An event like this shows them that mathematics requires creativity and imagination as well as technical ability. One aspect of the competition is to encourage the participants to think about studying mathematics at university.”

In the morning, teams were quizzed with shorter questions, similar to those posed in the International Mathematical Olympiad. The dynamic changed in the afternoon when students were presented with a problem in industrial optimisation.

“The teams were challenged to find the best possible location for a central warehouse, taking into account the location of subsidiary warehouses and the number of goods being transferred between them,” explains Dr Mayhew.

The judging panel was impressed with the efforts of all the teams, but three were singled out—a Wellington College team came first, Tawa College took second, and a team from Onslow College placed third. Competitors were from seven different high schools throughout the Wellington region.

“The competition is the first collaboration between Victoria and the Wellington Mathematics Association, but we intend it to become an annual event.”

To get a feeling for the types of questions posed, try the following: At a party, some people shake hands. Let n be the number of people who shake hands with an odd number of people. Why is n even?

The author of numerous books which have popularised mathematics to general audiences around the world will give a public lecture at Victoria University in early October.

The talk by Professor Ian Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, is titled Equations that Changed the World and will reveal the extent to which civilisation depends, and has depended, on a small number of important mathematical equations.

Professor Stewart is one of the world’s best-loved writers on maths, having published more than 80 titles.

This includes books such as Does God Play Dice, an exploration of chaos theory, a range of books on mathematical puzzles, curiosities and conundrums, the number one best seller 17 Equations That Changed the World, and collaborations with the science-fiction writers Terry Pratchett and Jack Cohen.

He has won many awards for furthering the public’s understanding of science including, in 2008, the Zeeman Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and the London Mathematical Society, the first medal specifically given to a mathematician in the United Kingdom for promoting maths to the public.

Professor Stewart’s Wellington lecture, at 5.30pm on Friday 4 October, will highlight how we rely on equations every day, when using things like mobile phones, the internet, electronic car navigation systems and digital cameras.

Despite being about equations, Professor Stewart says the audience will not need technical knowledge and the lecture will use plenty of pictures.

In 1997, Professor Stewart held the prestigious Forder Lectureship, an arrangement between the London and New Zealand Mathematical Societies under which a prominent United Kingdom mathematician tours New Zealand, giving lectures at major universities, including Victoria. Professor Stewart has also made a number of private visits to New Zealand in recent years.

In addition to giving a public lecture, he will be attending, and speaking at, the New Zealand Association of Mathematics Teachers conference in Wellington.

RSVP not necessary.

Professor Stewart’s lecture will take place on Friday 4 October , 5.30 – 6.30pm in Rutherford House Lecture Theatre 1, Pipitea Campus, Victoria University.

To request an interview with Professor Stewart, contact Communications Manager Katherine Edmond on 04 463 6017, 027 563 6017 or katherine.edmond@clear.net.nz

To find out more about Professor Stewart’s work, visit: http://freespace.virgin.net/ianstewart.joat/index.htm

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Issued by Victoria University of Wellington Communications & Marketing. Katherine Edmond, Communications Manager, can be contacted by emailing katherine.edmond@clear.net.nz or phoning (04) 463 6016 or 027 563 6017.

Victoria University of Wellington: New Zealand’s most research-intensive university.

The 10x10 series - ten speakers at ten locations in ten months. Come and listen to New Zealand mathematicians talking about their work and how they are helping to find solutions to today’s problems.

Codes and ciphers – the mathematics of the internet

Dr Dillon Mayhew

5.30pm Thursday 20 June 2013, Rimu Room, Scion, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua.

Our modern world has been completely transformed by the instantaneous movement of information around the globe – the information transmitted over the internet in 24 hours would fill 2,000,000 tons of CDs. How can we transmit such volumes of information accurately and securely? The answer lies in the mathematics of codes and ciphers. This talk will be a non-technical explanation of some of these mathematical ideas.

MSOR Associate Professor Mark McGuinness will deliver one of the 10x10 Lecture Series presentations on "Erupting Rocks and Dusts" at the University of Waikato on 22 May. The 10x10 Lectures are a series of ten speakers at ten locations in ten months, where New Zealand mathematicians talk about their work and how they are helping to find solutions to today’s problems.

More details can be found at http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/events/10-x-10-lecture-series/hamilton-may/

Hot on the heels of the first of the MSOR School Colloquium Talks - Richard Arnold 's talk on earthquakes and his election night forecasting, which attracted a large audience - comes the second colloquium talk, this time by Rod Downey. Rod's talk, "When does a problem have a solution: A logician and computability theorist's view", is aimed at a very general audience, and will be accessible to beginning graduate or even advanced undergraduate students.

The talk will be given in the Cotton Club (CO339) at 4pm on Friday May 8th, with refreshments to follow. For more information about the MSOR Research Colloquia, visit http://msor.victoria.ac.nz/Main/MSORColloquia, or click on the link on the left side of this page. A short description of Rod's talk is given below:

Much of mathematics is devoted to giving solutions to equations, calculating solutions to problems, classifying structures according to invariants and the like. Natural questions arise as to when this is not possible. This talk looks at questions such as this tracing, in a idiosyncratic way, a historical line leading to modern incarnations wherein logic allows us to show that no invariants are possible for (e.g.) certain problems in group theory. This is done by showing that normal mathematical structures can be caused to emulate computation in faithful ways.

This news item is a repeat of an earlier reminder about Rod's talk.