Maths on the Move

26:58

Joe Hilton: Striking the balance with health economics

Maths on the Move ·

2026/09/01

Should a life-saving, but expensive, cancer drug be made available on the NHS even though it only benefits very few people? Or should the money be allocated to drugs that lower blood pressure, which help vast swathes of the population? For the final episode of this season, we spoke to Joe Hilton, a health economist, to understand more about how difficult decisions like this one are made. Joe is a research fellow in mathematical modelling at the Manchester Centre for Health Economics and a 2025

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27:29

Meet a Mathematical Family

Maths on the Move ·

2026/08/25

“He asked me this question because I'm his sister and he loves me.” Mathematics can often be seen as a solitary endeavour, but as this quote from one of our latest podcast guests show, that is far from the truth. In this episode, we learn how a new proof has developed from one young mathematician talking to his sister – and then collaborating with their father and close family friend. We spoke to Roman Sauer and Uri Bader – and Uri’s two children Saar and Shaked – after they had attended a

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22:26

Ramin Zabih: Welcome to the ArXiv

Maths on the Move ·

2026/08/18

In this episode, we meet the CEO of one of the most important institutions in mathematics - arXiV. Around since 1991, the website is a publicly accessible home for mathematical research before it is officially published in journals. Around 1,000 articles are published on arXiv every day — it has hosted everything from the proof of the Poincaré Conjecture to some of the newest research from AI companies like DeepSeek and Gemini. We spoke to Ramin Zabih, a Professor at Cornell Tech and Interim Chief

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22:23

James Fergusson: AI and data intensive science

Maths on the Move ·

2026/08/11

What is the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in scientific research? In this episode, Cambridge Professor James Fergusson talks about some cutting-edge research which addresses this question. James is Director of the Infosys-Cambridge AI Centre, an innovative partnership between traditional academia and industry. James showed us how AI is quickly becoming the most effective tool for some kinds of data analysis, and even highlighted successful experiments he ran using AI to write research

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42:12

Ulrich Sperhake and Seppe Staelens: Boson stars

Maths on the Move ·

2026/08/04

Welcome to the latest episode of Maths on the Move! In this episode we spoke to Cambridge Professor of Theoretical Physics Ulrich Sperhake and his graduate student, Seppe Staelens, about boson stars: hypothetical objects that might be masquerading as black holes.Our conversation with Ulrich and Seppe marked the tenth anniversary of the first detection of gravitational waves. As Ulrich explained back then, gravitational waves "opened our ears to the Universe in a waveband in which we have been 100%

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27:59

Holly Krieger: The dynamics of numbers

Maths on the Move ·

2026/07/28

Plus is based at the Maths Faculty at the University of Cambridge so we have lots of opportunities to talk to interesting mathematicians about their work and their working lives. This week we speak to Holly Krieger, who is a professor here in a podcast that we originally produced for the Maths Faculty.Holly works in the overlap of two areas of mathematics: number theory – which is famous for problems such as Fermat's Last Theorem – and complex dynamics, which gives rise to beautiful fractals

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27:09

Hannah Fry wins Leelavati Prize!

Maths on the Move ·

2026/07/23

HF, Cambridge's first Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics, has been awarded the Leelavati Prize at this year's International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM). The Leelavati Prize is awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union and Infosys for outstanding contributions for increasing public awareness of mathematics.We talked to H in the run-up to the ICM about how she feels about being awarded the prize, the role of mathematics in culture, and her favourite

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25:06

Julian Sahasrabudhe: The ICM 2026

Maths on the Move ·

2026/07/14

We are continuing our conversations with mathematician colleagues at the University of Cambridge, part of the podcast we produce for the Maths Faculty here. Today we meet Julian Sahasrabudhe, Professor of Mathematics, and one of the invited speakers at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in July this year. The ICM is one of the biggest events in the mathematics world and is the host of several prizes, including the prestigious Fields Medal. Only mathematicians at the very forefront of

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23:17

Richard Samworth: The ICM 2026

Maths on the Move ·

2026/07/07

We are very lucky to be based at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. To start our latest podcast season we bring you a series of conversations with our mathematician colleagues, part of the podcast we produce for the Maths Faculty here. In our first podcast we meet Richard Samworth, Professor of Statistical Science and Director of the Statistical Laboratory. We spoke to him in the run up to the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), one of the biggest dates

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29:12

Living Proof: Building digital hearts

Maths on the Move ·

2025/11/20

IImagine if your doctor had a digital model of your heart, personalised to you and updated with your latest medical information. This isn't science fiction – this revolutionary healthcare is being tested now. In this podcast we speak to Steven Niederer, who leads the CVDNet project developing and testing these ideas, and his colleague Richard Wilkinson, from the University of Nottingham. Richard is one of the organisers of the long research programme, Representing, calibrating & leveraging

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26:32

Living Proof: Céline Broeckaert and Frank Verstraete

Maths on the Move ·

2025/11/12

"I have learnt that even if you are not a master in mathematics and science you are still able to grasp the essence."This is Céline Broeckaert talking, believe it or not, about the famously difficult theory of quantum mechanics. Céline knows what she's talking about. She's not a physicist, in fact she's a Romance languages scholar, author and playwright. Yet she's written a book about quantum mechanics together with her physicist husband Frank Verstraete, Leigh Trapnell Professor of Quantum

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28:44

Adventures in Model Land

Maths on the Move ·

2025/11/05

You are blue, and are surrounded by other blue people: swirling together in a dot, identical and indistinguishable. From somewhere above you hear the ticking of a clock, and suddenly find yourself and some of your fellows pulled upwards, sucked through a tube arcing high above...Intrigued? That is a description of one of Jess Enright's adventures in her mathematical models. This is an exciting new approach that researchers are using to invite people into the worlds of their models, both to

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37:02

Living Proof: Kevin Buzzard and proof assistants

Maths on the Move ·

2025/10/29

There's been a lot of talk recently about whether artificial intelligence is becoming just as good as maths as humans are. But quietly in the background there's been another development regarding the use of computers in maths. It involves proof assistants: computer programmes that can check whether a mathematical proof is correct; whether it can be derived from a set of basic axioms of mathematics using only the rules of logic.In this episode of Living proof we meet Kevin Buzzard, an expert on

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24:32

Living Proof: Moustapha Fall

Maths on the Move ·

2025/10/22

In this episode of the Living Proof podcast we're delighted to meet Moustapha Fall. Moustapha is the Center President of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Senegal and winner of a prestigious Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries. He also plays an important role on the international stage as Member-at-Large of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union.Moustapha talks to us about about the amazing institution that is AIMS,

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23:14

Living proof: Codina Cotar and some amazing...

Maths on the Move ·

2025/10/15

Earlier this year the the anomalous mathematical patterns sci-art competition attracted some jaw-dropping entries. The competition was held in connection to the Stochastic systems for anomalous diffusion research programme which took place at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) in Cambridge last year. In this episode of Maths on the Move we talk to Codina Cotar, who co-organised the INI programme and helped put on the competition. Codina explains the maths which served as

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22:45

Topological data analysis with Michael Hill

Maths on the Move ·

2025/10/08

The mathematical area of topology is all about figuring out what truly defines a shape. Famously, topologists consider a coffee cup to be the same as a doughnut because one can be turned into the other without cutting or gluing — what defines and relates these two shapes for a topologist is that they have a single hole.As you might imagine, if you have ever tried to drink coffee out of a doughnut, topology has traditionally been part of pure mathematics. Topological data analysis (TDA), however,

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31:38

David Tong and 100 years of quantum mechanics

Maths on the Move ·

2025/10/01

Welcome to the new season of the Maths on the Move podcast! We start the season with theoretical physicist David Tong of the University of Cambridge looking at an important milestone in the history of physics: the 100th birthday of quantum mechanics which we celebrate this year. David tells us why a new theory was needed, which of the many strange aspects of quantum mechanics is, in his opinion, the most significant, and that Erwin Schrödinger had a tendency to be grumpy. David also tells us how

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27:43

Liz Fearon: Co-producing mathematics with the public

Maths on the Move ·

2025/07/09

We may not notice it, but mathematics impacts our lives on a daily basis. Mathematical models inform policy decisions around the economy and public health. They are used to understand climate change and how to respond to it. They are vital in the design of public buildings and spaces. They are even used to try and prevent crime. It seems reasonable, then, that the mathematical models should reflect people's interaction with each other and their environment, and that they should take account of

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34:10

Living proof: Hunting through higher dimensions with...

Maths on the Move ·

2025/07/01

On May 30th 2024 seminar goers at Princeton University witnessed a thrilling moment. The mathematician Zhouli Xu of the University of California, LA, announced that, together with colleagues he had sorted out the 126th dimension. Not in general, but in regards to a problem that has taunted mathematicians since the 1960s. The problem involves strange shapes and is called the Kervaire invariant problem, after the mathematician Michel Kervaire.In this episode of Maths on the Move Zhouli takes us on a

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23:54

Brainstorming AI with Maths4DL

Maths on the Move ·

2025/06/25

The capabilities of artificial intelligence may appear to be galloping ahead, but there are still many challenges that need to be solved. Last month we joined members of the Maths4DL research project for a hackathon — an intensive two-day brainstorming session designed to figure out how one might teach machine learning techniques for solving differential equations and how best to test those techniques.In this episode of Maths on the Move, Maths4DL members Yolanne Lee from University College

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