UCL Institute of Education (IOE)
20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL
UK
The London Mathematical Society Popular Lectures present exciting topics in mathematics (and its applications) to a wide audience. Each year, the LMS Popular Lectures feature two lecturers, who have been chosen for their mathematical distinction and communication skills. The Society aims to present a wide range of mathematical topics in the lectures, which are suitable for all who have an interest in mathematics.
Professor Martin Hairer, FRS Regius Professor of Mathematics, University of Warwick
The mathematics of randomness
From the gambling machines in a casino to the predictions of next week’s weather, the world that surrounds us is governed by seemingly random events. How do mathematicians make sense of this and what does it even mean to ‘predict’ something inherently random? We will explore these questions and see what are the main guiding principles of our modern understanding of randomness.
Along the way we will see how the works of an 18th century egyptologist and a 19th century biologist allow today’s banks to model the stock market.
Dr Ruth King, Reader in Statistics, University of St Andrews (from 1st September, the Thomas Bayes Chair of Statistics at the University of Edinburgh)
How many…? (Estimating population sizes)
The question of “How many…?” arises in many different fields. For many applications, however, it is not possible to simply count the members of the population of interest. For such cases I will discuss mathematical tools that can be applied to provide an estimate of the total population size. Applications range from the number of webpages on the Internet on a given topic or the number of bugs in a computer code to the number of drug addicts or animals in a given area.