Speaker:Prof David Spiegelhalter, FRS (Statslab)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
Time: 15/02/2010 20:30, drinks from 20:15

A Bayesian perspective allows probability theory to be used as a formalism for epistemic uncertainty: ie a measure of our confidence in a current or past state of the world about which we are ignorant (although someone else might know the truth). This allows probability to be used to quantify our uncertainty about a suspect’s guilt, the image on the Turin shroud, the average effect of a medical treatment, or whether Jane Austen died before Napoleon. I will look at how these ideas have developed and are being used in practice, and how scoring rules can be used to assess how well you can quantify your doubt. A test will be given at the end, and a small prize awarded for the person who best knows what they don’t know.

Speaker:Dr Jacob Rasmussen (DPMMS)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
Time: 01/02/2010 20:30, drinks from 20:15

The tangent bundle to the n-dimensional sphere is the set of all pairs (x,v), where x is a point in the sphere, and v is a vector in R^{n+1} tangent to x at p. I’ll discuss the geometry and topology of this space and of a more general class of spaces known as vector bundles on spheres.

Speaker:Paul Smith (DPMMS)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
Time: 18/01/2010 20:30, drinks from 20:15

Graphs (or networks) have a rich history of study stretching back over 250 years. I shall talk about one particular infinite graph, some of its surprising properties, how it arises naturally out of coin tossing, and how to beat Derren Brown at his own game.

Speaker:Dr Gabriel Paternain (DPMMS)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
Time: 23/11/2009 20:30, drinks from 20:15

I will try to explain connections between some of the equations you study in IB Fluids and the field of contact topology. I will make a deliberate attempt to convince you to read the wonderful book by Arnold and Khesin ‘Topological methods in Hydrodynamics’.

Speaker:Film Night (800th Meeting)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
Time: 09/11/2009 20:30, drinks from 20:15

To mark the occassion of our 800th meeting* falling in the 800th anniversary year of the University of Cambridge, we are proud to host a special film night with George Paul Csicsery’s 1993 documentary on one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th Century. There will be a brief talk on the history of the Society beforehand and a celebratory party is planned afterwards. (*depending on your counting system)

Speaker:Dr Colm-cille Caulfield (DAMTP)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
Time: 26/10/2009 20:30, drinks from 20:15

Mathematics is the language that describes the natural world, but it is sometimes a bit hard to read the handwriting. In this talk, I will introduce the concept of ‘dimensional analysis’ as a very powerful tool for understanding the key quantities of interest in a range of physical situations. A particularly famous and appropriate example is the accurate estimation of the (classified) yield of the Trinity nuclear test by the Trinity mathematician G. I. Taylor using (declassified) photographs. I will also discuss some closely related techniques for the identification of ‘similarity solutions’ which often manage to capture the important features of a physical system with surprisingly little mathematical heavy lifting.

Speaker:Dr Mike Tehranchi (Stats Lab)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
Time: 12/10/2009 20:30, drinks from 20:15

The talk is available.

Probabilistic modelling plays a crucial role in natural sciences, engineering, and economics. One of the most basic building blocks of these models is the stochastic process called Brownian motion. I will discusss ways in which this fundamental process arises in several diverse contexts in applied and pure mathematics.

Speaker:Dr. Jeremy Butterfield (Faculty of Philosophy)
Venue: Old Combination Room, Trinity College
Time: 02/03/2009 20:30, drinks from 20:15

The founding fathers of quantum theory debated whether the peculiar behaviour of quantum systems, such as their non-classical statistics, meant that they were not objects. In current philosophy of physics, the debate continues, using the tools of modern logic and metaphysics. This talk will review the state of play.

Speaker:Prof. Mike Proctor (DAMTP)
Venue: Old Combination Room, Trinity College
Time: 19/02/2009 20:30, drinks from 20:15

When physical systems with many symmetries become unstable, the result is a pattern with fewer symmetries. But typically there are an infinite number of such patterns, and the selection between them is due to nonlinear effects. Many cases can be understood by means of ‘equivariant bifurcation theory’. I will give a brief discussion of this with some common examples of patterns that can be predicted on symmetry grounds.

Speaker:Dr. Peter Friz (Statslab)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
Please note change of venue
Time: 02/02/2009 20:30, drinks from 20:15

Modern financial theory tells us that prices of options are given by expectations of the payoffs with respect to some pricing measure, typically written as infinite dimensional integrals of some functional against Wiener measure. The fast and accurate numerical evaluation of such integrals is an ongoing challenge. I will explain some recent ideas based on the Lie group structure of iterated integrals. The resulting “cubature” formulae can be traced back to no one less than Sir Isaac Newton.