IMA 50th Anniversary
The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2014. This is a first call for interested parties to become involved in the support and sponsorship of events to publicise mathematics and the hugely important role that it plays in the modern world, together with the 50 years of support to mathematics and mathematicians given by the IMA.
The IMA at 50
To celebrate 50 years of achievement, the IMA plans an exciting series of events during 2014. These will look forward to the developments and limitless opportunities for the applications of mathematics in the next 50 years and celebrate the achievements of the past. Plans include:
A 50th Birthday Party
To celebrate the Birthday of the IMA we will have a major event in the Royal Society on the afternoon and evening of 14 May 2014. The afternoon will start with five talks celebrating: 50 years of the IMA, 50 years of mathematics research, 50 years of mathematics in industry, 50 years of mathematics in education, and 50 years of mathematical outreach, all delivered by high profile speakers. This will then be followed by a reception. The finale of the day will be the lecture by the (as yet to be decided) IMA Gold Medal Winner. All members of the IMA, together with many others, will be invited to attend this meeting at a moderate cost. This will be an opportunity to participate in a historic event and to celebrate the work and achievements of the IMA in the past fifty years. So please hold this date in your diaries.
The Festival of Maths and its Applications
In early July 2014 we will look forward to the next fifty years, and with an emphasis on youth, will be running the first Festival of Mathematics and its Applications. This will be the first hands-on festival devoted to mathematics, and it will be held in the Turing Building at the University of Manchester (celebrating in part the close links between the IMA and Manchester). The festival will comprise interactive exhibitions (from schools, industry, universities and learned societies), popular and academic talks, maths busking, debates, competitions and discussions, all with a theme of the fun, excitement and amazing impact of mathematics on our world both now and in the future. We will hope that all IMA members will have some great ideas for exhibitions and will be keen to hear from you. More details on how to apply to run an exhibition will follow, but start planning now! The festival will be free to attend, with something for everyone, from schools and families to celebrities and from academic mathematicians to industrialists.
Maths Trails
During 2014 we will also be launching a series of legacy projects. One of these will be a set of regional maths trails. Maths trails are projects which could be done by a local branch, a school, an undergraduate maths society, a company, or any group of interested volunteers. They are guides to a town or region, based on its mathematical features, and are meant to inspire families, school parties or anyone visiting who would like to learn a bit of maths as well. The trails are intended to raise awareness of mathematics in our daily lives and in particular to stimulate the interest of many young people so that they will go on to be the mathematicians of the future. A group of IMA members, led by Garrod Musto CMathTeach FIMA and Steve Humble FIMA (aka Dr Maths) had a pleasant evening wandering around Bath, looking at the sights and thinking up mathematical issues, questions and puzzles related to them. Later on in the evening (at the pub) the notes were compared and the beginnings of the maths trail started to take shape. A bit of extra work later and we had the IMA Bath Maths Trail. We challenge all IMA members to do likewise. The trails will be in the form of a leaflet which will also be placed on the IMA website. Please get in touch if you want to create a trail, and we can provide a template, help and guidance.
A book celebrating 50 great things about mathematics
As a further, and hopefully long lasting legacy project, a book has been commissioned that will be published by Oxford University Press. It will comprise fifty accessible and thought-provoking articles on a wide variety of topics through the spectrum of mathematics and its applications. The intended audience is a general reader with an interest in maths who would like to learn some more about maths, its applications and its relevance to their lives. The editors of the book are Chris Budd CMath FIMA, Alan Champneys CMath FIMA (Chair), Marianne Freiberger, Paul Glendinning FIMA, Steve Humble FIMA, Rachel Thomas and Ahmer Wadee CMath FIMA, CSci. The contents of the book will include invited articles from well-known mathematicians and maths communicators. Moreover, to celebrate the contribution of the IMA itself, the editors would like to announce details of the
IMA@50 Book Competition
We are happy to announce a prize competition for short articles, of 500–1,500 words, of popular mathematics writing, which is open to all members of the IMA. Members of any status, age or experience are eligible to enter, and we would particularly like to encourage entries from younger mathematicians.
The winning article and runners-up will be published, in a suitably edited form, in a forthcoming book ‘Fifty’ that will be published by Oxford University Press to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the IMA in 2014. The overall winner will also receive an iPad which will be presented at the IMA birthday celebration to be held at the Royal Society in May 2014, to which all runners-up will also be invited. All Entries will be judged by the IMA50 book editorial team.
Further entries of sufficient quality will be offered the opportunity of being reworked to form articles for Mathematics Today.
Your article should aim to appeal to any fan of popular science books, or just to the mathematically curious, and aimed at an international audience. Nevertheless, you should try to avoid the over-trivialisation that can frustrate those of us with mathematical training. Roughly speaking the articles should fall into one of five categories:
- best maths of the last 50 years: including strange or interesting biography;
- popular maths: sport, arts (prose, poetry and visual media), social science;
- maths at work: medicine, finance, the environment, government;
- quirky maths, humour, spoof and magic;
- philosophy/psychology of maths, maths in education
Entries can be accepted in any reasonable file format. For those that are familiar with LaTeX, this is our preferred format, and we will be happy to send you a suitable template (or you can download this below) together with general suggested style guidelines for the articles and copyright form.
Articles, together with a completed copyright form, should be submitted by email to IMA50competition@maths.cam.ac.uk. Please also include your IMA membership number as proof of IMA membership.
Any questions concerning the competition and request for a LaTeX style file can be addressed to Sam Parc at 50book@ima.org.uk
The closing date for all entries is 15 January 2013.
What to do next
If you want to find out more, get involved in some way, create a maths trail or simply want to offer support or ideas please don’t hesitate to get in touch with either the IMA@50 coordinator Chris Budd CMath FIMA or any other member of the IMA@50 committee: David Abrahams CMath FIMA, Alan Champneys CMath FIMA, Paul Glendinning FIMA, Steve Humble FIMA, John Meeson, Garrod Musto CMathTeach FIMA, Nigel Steele CMath FIMA, Alan Stevens CMath FIMA, Heather Tewkesbury CMath FIMA, Ahmer Wadee CMath FIMA CSci, Mike Walker OBE CMath FIMA and David Youdan FIMA. We look forward to hearing from you.
