Marianne Freiberger is Editor of Plus. She joined Plus in 2005 after doing a PhD and then a three year postdoc at Queen Mary, University of London. As a researcher she worked in complex dynamics, the area of pure maths that has given us the Mandelbrot set. In the world of maths communication she has been Editor-in-Chief of the Mathscareers website, given presentations to mathematicians about how to communicate their work to a wider audience, and to journalists about how to deal with maths in the media. She has been a TEDx speaker and an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010.
Together with Rachel Thomas, Marianne has co-authored several popular maths books including Numericon: A journey through the hidden lives of numbers and Understanding numbers, and were editors on the book 50: visions of mathematics. They were Science Editors for the Discovery+ documentary series Universe Unravelled about the work of the Stephen Hawking Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.
In October 2022 Marianne and Rachel received a SPI-M-O Award for Modelling and Data Support (SAMDS) from the UK's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. This award recognised their work with the JUNIPER modelling consortium to provide a wide audience (including public, press, policy makers and government) with clear and accessible explanations of some of the maths that was vital in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That geometry should be relevant to physics is no surprise — after all, space is the arena in which physics happens. What is surprising, though, is the extent to which the geometry of space actually determines physics and just how exotic the geometric structure of our Universe appears to be. Plus met up with mathematician Shing-Tung Yau to find out more.
A group of school students-turned-researchers has delivered new data that will help scientists stem the spread of infectious diseases. A study designed by the students reveals social contact patterns among primary schools students. This type of information is crucial in mathematical models of how diseases spread, which can be used to test the effects of interventions like vaccination and school closures. The study was based on specially designed questionnaires which were handed out to primary schools and achieved an unprecedented response rate of nearly 90%.
Quantum mechanics is usually associated with weird and counterintuitve phenomena we can't observe in real life. But it turns out that quantum processes can occur in living organisms, too, and with very concrete consequences. Some species of birds use quantum mechanics to navigate. And as Plus found out at a recent conference, studying these little creatures' quantum compass may help us achieve the holy grail of computer science: building a quantum computer.
Benoît Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, died last Thursday at the age of 85. Born in Poland in 1924, Mandelbrot had dual French and American citizenship and spent most of his working life in the US. He died of cancer in a hospice in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Well, it goes to no-one because there isn't a Nobel Prize for maths. Some have speculated that Alfred Nobel neglected maths because his wife ran off with a mathematician, but the rumour seems to be unfounded. But whatever the reason for its non-appearance in the Nobel list, it's maths that makes the science-based Nobel subjects possible and it usually plays a fundamental role in the some of the laureates' work. Here we'll have a look at two of the prizes awarded this year, in physics and economics.
