Our Year 12 A-Level Mathematicians had a fantastic time at the ‘Maths Inspiration’ event in Cambridge this week.
Students from across the region attended the event at West Road Concert Hall on December 6th, during which a series of speakers presented Mathematics live in the context of exciting, real-world applications.
Thomas Alderton, one of our Year 12 Mathematicians, said: “The morning began with an introduction by Helen Pilcher to the Mathematics that exists around us and within nature; she also briefly spoke about her new book which comprehensively explains the distinct differences between the placebo and nocebo effects. Interestingly, the majority of side effects which most people experience post-vaccination are due to pre-conceived concerns and the nocebo effect, not the medication itself!
“Second to speak was Hugh Hunt with a talk on ‘Maths In a Spin’ which delved deep into the Mathematics of everyday situations such as how a cricket ball can spin and change direction, how a boomerang returns to the handler, or how a cat has a ‘righting reflex’ that allows them to orient themselves and land on their feet.
“Next on the stage was Sophie Maclean, with her presentation on ‘Putting the Colours into Maths’. King’s student, Jack Tisi, was invited to play a geometric puzzle game against another student in the audience. Unfortunately, nobody had spotted the previous slide which stated it was not possible for player 2 (Jack) to win! Sophie then went on to challenge us with a conundrum that has riddled the minds of Mathematicians for thousands of years, and which involved finding the minimum number of colours required to completely shade a map with no adjacent borders sharing common colours. Whilst we were not able to completely prove this, we had a go at shading a small map of our own using as few colours as possible.
“The last talk was by Ben Sparks, who is a Mathematician, Musician and Public Speaker; he is well-renowned for his regular work with Numberphile. Ben spoke about the ‘Windmills of Your Mind’, in which he touched on inductive proof, complex numbers and how interactions or sequences of numbers can form a variety of different shapes and patterns. His explanation of the Maths we can observe in flowers, and how this is closely related to sequences of irrational numbers, was fascinating!
“We all agreed that it was a wonderful and inspiring day out.”