Talks

Speaker Meeting
Professor Fernando Quevedo (DAMTP)
"The string landscape and our universe"
26th January 2007, 7.30pm, CMS MR5

An overview will be presented about recent efforts to find physical implications of string theory. A `landscape' picture is emerging in which our universe is only one in a huge class of universes

Speaker Meeting
Professor Peter Cameron (Queen Mary, University of London)
"Sudoku: an alternative history"
2nd February 2007, 7.30pm, CMS MR3

Although instructions for Sudoku in the press often say "There's no mathematics required", in fact there are many mathematical connections, going back to Euler. I will start off by explaining how the ingredients of the puzzle came to be developed by mathematicians. Sudoku is closely related to Latin squares, which have applications in statistics and cryptography. I will also talk about a variant of Sudoku due to Robert Connelly, whose analysis involves other parts of mathematics such as affine geometry over finite fields and error-correcting codes.

Seminars for Undergraduates
Julia Goedecke (DPMMS)
"Chasing Categories"
9th February 2007, 4pm, CMS MR5

I will give a glimpse of the broad subject of Homological Algebra through some famous diagram lemmas, called the Five-Lemma, the Nine-Lemma and the Snake-Lemma. We will prove one of these by "diagram chasing", which is fun and involves lots of colours. I will also introduce Category Theory by giving some definitions and examples, and then we will see how we can make these diagram lemmas hold in a more general context.

Speaker Meeting
Professor Frances Kirwan (Oxford)
"Surfaces and strings"
16th February 2007, 7.30pm, CMS MR5

This talk is about surfaces: their geometry and topology, and how they are related to string theory in mathematical physics. It is intended to be accessible to first-year undergraduate mathematicians, but has the (no doubt over-optimistic) aim of providing a small taste of some current research in geometry.

Seminars for Undergraduates
Jack Waldron (PhD student of Dr I. Smith)
"Why Knots Are Really Hard to Untie"
23rd February 2007, 4pm, CMS MR5

Was Alexander right to cut open the Gordian Knot? Anyone who's played with a badly tangled piece of string for long enough will appreciate his solution. In fact, a lot of computations in Knot theory are provably NP-hard. I will talk about the diversity of Knot Theory and the quest to understand combinatorial knot invariants in a geometric way and so to gain knowledge that doesn't require difficult computation.

Mathematical Comedy
ICE (Improvised Comedy Ents)
"The Fundamental Theorem of Comedy: A few simple Corollaries"
9th March 2007, 7:30pm, CMS, MR2

No scripts! No rehearsals! No Zorn's lemon! Back at the maths faculty by popular demand, Improvised Comedy Ents bring you another evening of fast-paced games and sketches driven entirely by suggestions from the audience.

Will it be a continuous night of laughter?
Will ICE find their potential?
Or will there be any maths references at all?

Only the Fundamental Theorem of Comedy has the answer.

Social

Puzzles and Games Ring
Every Saturday, 2pm
Burrell's Field Common Room, Trinity College
Our games subgroup is now up and running again! Come along to play any of a variety of games, including various board games, Othello, Backgammon, Tripples, Mensa, Chess, Draughts, Fibonacci, Cirrondo, The Viking Game, Go, Risk and Icehouse games; or bring your own!

Puzzles Hunt
Sunday 28th January 2007, 2pm onwards
Starting Location: Pembroke
Run around solving problems against the clock! You'll write a mathematical story (the best of which will be published in Eureka), and have the chance to win some very random prizes.

Problems Drive
Sunday 4th March, 2pm
CMS Cafe
Our annual Problems Drive, competing with visitors from the Warwick and Oxford Maths Societies.

Annual General Meeting
Tuesday 6th March 2007, 1:30pm
CMS Cafe
We'll be reporting back to our members on the past year, and electing a new Committee. Come along and get involved! [Details of Committee positions]

Scients Jazz & Cocktails
Sunday 11th March 2007, 8pm
New Hall Bar
Come and join us for an evening of Jazz and Cocktails whilst meeting fellow Mathematicians and Scientists!