Picturing Mathematics

Booking via Rewley House Website 

A day on the ways mathematicians have expressed their ideas in picture-form. Learn how these mathematical tools were invented with an enjoyable view of the beauty of mathematics.

There are many instances in the history of mathematics when equations or symbols were not the best means of conveying ideas and concepts, and new ways of communication were devised. We are now familiar with the beautiful butterfly patterns associated with chaos theory, the E8 geometry of string theory, and the fractal patterns of Mandlebrot. These esoteric examples from the last century joined earlier mathematical visualisation in the form of surface models, Venn diagrams, and presentations of probability. The day will investigate how these mathematical tools were invented, and provide an enjoyable view of the beauty of mathematics.

Programme details

SATURDAY 24 JUNE 2017

9.30am           Registration and coffee/tea

10.00am         Introduction and welcome

10.05am        The painter's eyes in Albrecht Dürer's geometrical diagrams    

                      PROFESSOR JEANNE PEIFFER

10.45am         Florence Nightingale’s statistical diagrams

                       HUGH SMALL

11.25am         Coffee/tea

11.55am         Venn diagrams

                       PROFESSOR A.W.F EDWARDS

12.35pm        From skeleton structures to geometrical surfaces: the mathematical models of Olaus Henrici

                        PROFESSOR JUNE BARROW-GREEN

1.15pm           Lunch

2.20pm           Symmetry, Patterns and Groups

                        PROFESSOR SARAH HART

3.00pm            Fractals - simple or complex?

                        PROFESSOR KENNETH FALCONER

3.40pm           Tea/coffee

4.00pm           Picturing Chaos

                       PROFESSOR IAN STEWART                

5.00pm           Course Disperses