Maths on the Move

Living Proof: Building digital hearts

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I Imagine if your doctor had a digital model of your heart, personalised to you and updated with your latest medical information. This isn't science f...

Living Proof: Céline Broeckaert and Frank Verstraete

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"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 tal...

Adventures in Model Land

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You are blue, and are surrounded by other blue people: swirling together in a dot, identical and indistinguishable. From somewhere above you hear the ...

Living Proof: Kevin Buzzard and proof assistants

29 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 backgrou...

Living Proof: Moustapha Fall

22 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Living proof: Codina Cotar and some amazing mathematical art

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this year the the anomalous mathematical patterns sci-art competition attracted some jaw-dropping entries. The competition was held in conn...

Topological data analysis with Michael Hill

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 a...

David Tong and 100 years of quantum mechanics

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 Cambr...

Liz Fearon: Co-producing mathematics with the public

09 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We may not notice it, but mathematics impacts our lives on a daily basis. Mathematical models inform policy decisions around the economy and public...

Living proof: Hunting through higher dimensions with Zhouli Xu

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On May 30th 2024 seminar goers at Princeton University witnessed a thrilling moment. The mathematician Zhouli Xu of the University of California, LA...

Brainstorming AI with Maths4DL

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The capabilities of artificial intelligence may appear to be galloping ahead, but there are still many challenges that need to be solved. Last month w...

Meet your digital twin

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine we could have a digital version of our entire body which could help us, and our doctors, decide what life style is good for us, predict which ...

Living proof: The meaning is in the arrows with Adina Goldberg

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast we hope to give you some interesting information.  This information is encoded in terms of 0s and 1s – the classical bits in your...

Postcard from Oslo: Masaki Kashiwara and the 2025 Abel Prize

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From sunny parks to banquets in castles – come with us on an exciting adventure in Oslo as we join the celebrations for the 2025 Abel Prize!  We m...

Living proof: A conversation with Sarah Hart

22 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah Hart is a mathematician who is interested, not just in the maths itself, but also its connections to other areas of culture and art. She's done ...

Rob Eastaway: Shakespeare's mathematical life and times

15 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One thing we all have in common is that we did maths at school. Those of us from the English speaking world most likely also did Shakespeare at school...

Living proof: Diving into maths with Emmy Noether

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every now and again, and more often than you'd think, the work of mathematics overlaps with the world of theatre and film. This happened again recentl...

The Abel Prize 2025

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last Wednesday, March 26, 2025, this year's Abel Prize was awarded to the Japanese mathematician Masaki Kashiwara. The Abel Prize is one of the m...

Evidence week: Shaping the future of AI

25 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The UK government has recently pledged to put around £14 billion into supporting the development of artificial intelligence over the next few years. ...

Living proof: Communicating mathematics with the INI and Hannah Fry

18 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We kick off our latest series of podcasts with an episode of Living proof, produced jointly with the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Science...

Euromaths: Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze

24 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last summer we were lucky enough to attend the European Congress of Mathematics (ECM) in Seville, Spain. The Congress sees the award of several pre...

Playing with VisualPDE

17 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is as hypnotising as a beautiful goldfish circling its bowl, but can help you understand the way a virus can spread? The answer is one of the bea...

Solve for X and the Martingale Foundation

10 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Are you thinking of doing a Masters or PhD in maths or another STEM subject but are worried about funding? Then the Martingale Foundation might be ...

Yolanne Lee: Cats, dogs and AI

03 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As a PhD student working with the Maths4DL research project, Yolanne Lee works on the mathematics that powers artificial intelligence. In this podca...

Hannah Fry: Mathematics for the people

26 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're very excited that Hannah Fry is coming to join us in Cambridge in January 2025. Fry is a brilliant mathematician, best-selling author, award w...

Euromaths: Heather Harrington

19 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We all know what data is: bits of information of which in this age of Big Data we have lots of. You might also know what topology is: the study of s...

Euromaths: Giovanni Forni

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We love a game of billiards — or at least the mathematical version of it. It's a dynamical system that's just about basic enough to study but still ...

Euromaths: Jessica Fintzen

05 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As the days in the UK get shorter and darker we continue remembering the brilliant time we had in Seville last summer at the European Congress of Mat...

Euromaths: Richard Montgomery

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The world is full of networks. We're part of them, our infrastructure is full of them, and there are even networks within our bodies (e.g. made from n...

David Spiegelhalter and the art of uncertainty

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

David Spiegelhalter, one of our favourite statisticians in the whole world, has a new book out. It's called The art of uncertainty: How to navigate c...

Meet the multiverse

08 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We recently found out why pieces of toast tend to land butter side down. It' because the physical factors at play, including the typical height of bre...

The Gömböc revisited

01 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Gömböc is a strange thing. It looks like an egg with sharp edges, and when you put it down it starts wriggling and rolling around as if it were al...

What are groups and what are they good for?

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the summer we've been incredibly lucky to have been working with Justin Chen, a maths student at the University of Cambridge who is about to sta...

Euromaths: Avi Wigderson

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This summer we were very pleased to attend the European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which took place in Seville, Spain, in July. We went to lots ...

The origin of life: On Earth and elsewhere

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is there life elsewhere in the Universe? And how did life emerge here on Earth? These two questions are often considered separately, but answers to on...

The secret to a happy summer: Seville, causality and staircases!

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're getting excited for the summer here but before we all head off on holidays we catch up with Marianne in Spain at the European Congress of Mat...

On the mathematical frontline: Modelling behaviour

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How we behave can have far greater impacts than just on our own daily lives.  For example who we interact with and whether we get vaccinated affe...

Euromaths: Maryna Viazovska

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! We noticed t...

Euromaths: Artur Avila

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! We noticed t...

Euromaths: Alessio Figalli

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! We noticed t...

Euromaths: James Maynard

04 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! And we notic...

Euromaths: Hugo Duminil-Copin

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're very excited to be going to this year's European Congress of Mathematics (ECM), which will take place in Seville, Spain, in July! One of the i...

The murmuration conjecture: finding new maths with AI

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence is changing our lives. Many of us use the voice activated features on our phones to recognise, understand and fairly complex s...

Tying together black holes, quantum gravity and number theory

07 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"The 20th century was the interaction of geometry and physics, and the 21st century is the interaction of number theory with physics." This intriguing...

The art of maths and the maths of art

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mathematics is a creative pursuit so it's not surprising that there are communalities between maths and art in all its forms. In this episode we explo...

Ramanujan: Dream of the possible

23 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most fascinating figures in the history of mathematics was Srinivasa Ramanujan, a self-taught Indian genius who formed a remarkable relati...

Celebrating spring with new shoots of mathematics

16 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Maths on the move we look at some favourite pieces of maths we have worked on so far this year. From a revolutionary new tile to...

How physics can help AI learn about the real world

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's always exciting to have a glimpse at new mathematics and technology as they take shape.  In this podcast we talk to Georg Maierhofer, from the ...

The force awakens: Quantum collisions

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last weekend our friends and neighbours at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge put on a great event: the Mathematics ...

How does AI work?

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence has made astonishing progress in the last few years. Perhaps surprisingly, all of the amazing things we've seen, from ChatGPT ...

It's all connected – climate change and the spread of diseases

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We’re now all very aware that climate change is not just a problem for the future – 2023 was officially the hottest year on record ever. And as we...

Reduce, remove, refreeze: Repairing the Earth's climate

05 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Could we make the clouds brighter so they reflect more of the Sun's warming rays back into space to keep us cooler? Or make Arctic ice thicker so it l...

Bye bye 23, hello 24!

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this, the last episode of Maths on the move for this year, we look back on 2023 and forward to 2024. We talk about some highlights in our coverag...

Can we build a low carbon energy network

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

To help mitigate climate change the UK government has pledged to decarbonised UK electricity supply by 2035. That's a huge science and engineering ch...

The travelling salesman

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We continue our series about bringing maths to the stage and screen by going back to 2012 when we were lucky enough to host the UK premiere of the Tr...

The universal machine: Putting Alan Turing on the stage

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When you think of Alan Turing you might think of his work breaking the Enigma code in World War II. Or you might think of his work that helped build t...

A disappearing number

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is the second part of our mini series focussing on mathematics coming to life on stage and in film. We revisit our 2008 interview with mathematic...

Have physicists discovered a fifth force of nature?

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the summer we came across news coverage claiming that scientist were on the verge of discovering a fundamental force of nature they hadn't previo...

Victoria Gould: Combining mathematics and acting

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Victoria Gould has always known she would be an actor, and went straight from studying arts at school to running her own theatre company. But she even...

How many dimensions are there?

24 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How many dimensions are there? We might not be aware, but we are actually used to living in a curved, multidimensional Universe. In this episode theor...

Telescope topology

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

n this podcast we bring you breaking news from the world of topology! Four mathematicians, all in earlier stages of their career, have resolved the lo...

From clicks to chords

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How is mathematics related to frequency related to pitch? We found out from our favourite music correspondent, Oli Freke! In this podcast you can hear...

How does human noise impact whales?

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We humans have many rules and regulations surrounding noise — because we recognise that noise disruption is annoying, stressful, and ultimately robs...

Living Proof: The irrational diary of Clara Valentine

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week we co-host a fascinating episode of the Isaac Newton Institute's Living Proof podcast. In the episode Dan Aspel speaks to Coralie Colmez,...

Mathematical summer fun

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Did you do anything fun on your summer holidays? The mathematicians in this podcast spent some of their summer helping to create the perfect smoothie,...

Gravitational waves reveal cosmic hum

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

There's been some huge news in the world of cosmology: for the first time scientists have detected a low frequency hum of gravitational waves. The new...

Sarah Hart: Once upon a prime

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

People don't usually think about maths and literature as related subjects, but it turns out that there are plenty of connections between the two. In t...

A very old problem turns 30!

23 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"I think I'll stop here." This is how, on 23rd June 1993, Andrew Wiles ended his series of lectures at the Isaac Newton Institute (INI), our neigh...

Chocolate and mayonnaise

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chocolate and mayonnaise are two of our all time favourite foods, so we were very happy to get the chance to talk to Valerie Pinfield, Professor of E...

From clicks to chords

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You might have heard in the news recently that musician Ed Sheeran was being sued for similarities between his song Thinking out loud from 2014, and...

A new map of dark matter

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Did you know that we don't know what 85% of the stuff in our Universe is made of? This mysterious 85% is known as dark matter. We can't see it becau...

SBIDER Presents: Shining a light on COVID modelling

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Was the mathematical modelling projecting the course of the pandemic too pessimistic, or were the projections justified? Matt Keeling tells our collea...

Synchronised swimming

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In a tank in an underground laboratory in Cambridge a little green alga is executing a powerful breaststroke. It belongs to a group of algae called v...

Does infinity exist?

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is infinity? What is infinity plus 100? What is infinity plus infinity? Today's podcast was inspired by questions sent in by our friend Ash. To a...

Climate change and ready meals: Challenges for epidemiologists

04 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the pandemic we all learnt to value the work of epidemiologists, whose mathematical models are essential in giving us an idea of where an epide...

Living Proof: Timandra Harkness – How to make maths funny

28 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"What's a statistician's favourite sandwich filling?..." Timandra Harkness – presenter, writer, comedian and Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society...

Living Proof: Hannah Thomas – Making data accessible

21 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Having empathy with your audience – with all your audiences – is the first step for making your content accessible. Hannah Thomas of the Governme...

Living Proof: Communicating from the frontiers of mathematics

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We are very happy to work closely with our neighbours, the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI), to help explain, celebrate and pu...

On the mathematical frontline: Tom Irving

07 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Here at Plus, we were very grateful for Tom Irving's work during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was the Co-Head of the secretariat of the Scientific Pande...

Sexual statistics

28 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you've ever been lucky enough to meet David Spiegelhalter, or hear him talk in person or on TV or radio, you'll know he tells a great story. And t...

What are liquid metal batteries

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The world needs to move to renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind. The problem with those is that they're intermittent. That's because the Su...

A 60% chance of rain: Weather, climate, and how to deal with uncertainty

06 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Will climate change leave the region you live in hotter and drier, or wetter and stormier? It's a question of utmost importance in many areas of the w...

Are the constants of nature really constant?

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There are some numbers you can rely on. The speed of light, c, is 299,792,458 ms-1. The gravitational constant, G, is 6.674 x 10-11m3kg-1s-2. These ...

Stadium maths

23 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Amid much controversy, the 2022 World Cup has begun and the action has now moved onto the football pitches inside the many newly built stadiums in Qat...

Voices from Ukraine: Yuriy Semenov

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Yuriy Semenov was forced to leave Ukraine, and his work at the Institute of Hydromechanics at the National Academy of Sciences, due to the Russian i...

Voices from Ukraine: Nataliya Vaisfel’d

08 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Nataliya Vaisfel'd was until recently a mathematician at Odesa I. I. Mechnykov National University. Forced to flee Ukraine after the Russian...

Women of Mathematics: Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb

11 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Over the summer we were lucky enough to meet some young female mathematicians who were just finishing up their summer research projects with the Phil...

Women of Mathematics: Holly Krieger

20 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast we are very happy to revisit our 2017 interview with Holly Krieger, one of the six Cambridge mathematicians whose portrait is include...

Women of Mathematics: Julia Gog

14 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast we are very happy to revist our 2017 interview with Julia Gog - Professor of Mathematical Biology and a very good friend of us here a...

Women of mathematics: Anne-Christine Davis

06 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast we revisit our 2017 interview with Anne-Christine Davis, Professor of Theoretical Physics. Anne was the first female professor in the ...

Women of Mathematics: Nilanjana Datta

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Last week we started a special series of podcasts revisiting the  Women of Mathematics photo exhibition, which celebrates female mathematicians from ...

Women of Mathematics: Natalia Berloff

24 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This month we had the pleasure of meeting some young female mathematicians who were just finishing up their summer research projects with the Philipp...

AI, babies, and agency

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast, first published in August 2020, we hear from machine learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio, who believes that creating a true artificial int...

Machine learning and artificial intelligence

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence and machines that train themselves might sound like a plot from a science fiction movie, but these things are already part of ...

How the velodrome found its form

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

To celebrate the Commonwealth Games happening this week in the UK we are visiting one of the venues, the velodrome in the Lee Valley VeloPark in Londo...

Maths on the red carpet - Fields Medallist June Huh

26 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

June Huh has won one of this year's Fields Medals at the International Congress of Mathematicians. The Fields Medal is one of the most prestigious pri...

Maths on the red carpet – Fields Medallist Hugo Duminil-Copin

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hugo Duminil-Copin has won a 2022 Fields Medal for his work transforming the mathematical theory of phase transitions in statistical physics. Fields M...

Maths on the red carpet - Fields Medallist James Maynard

12 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

James Maynard has won a 2022 Fields Medal for "spectacular contributions to number theory". Fields Medals count among the highest honours in mathemati...

Maths on the red carpet – Fields Medallist Maryna Viazovska

05 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hello from Helsinki! We are very pleased to be bringing you coverage direct from the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) – one of th...

Maths on the red carpet –Revisiting the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians

28 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We are getting very excited - next week is the International Congress of Mathematicians  (ICM)- one of the highlights of the mathematical calendar! ...