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<div class="" style="word-wrap:break-word">Hi everyone,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">… the following talks might be of interest to some of you.<br class="">
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<div>Best</div>
<div>Denis</div>
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<div class="">Begin forwarded message:</div>
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<span class="" style=""><b class="">From: </b></span><span class="" style="">Sven Gnutzmann <<a href="mailto:sven.gnutzmann@nottingham.ac.uk" class="">sven.gnutzmann@nottingham.ac.uk</a>><br class="">
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<span class="" style=""><b class="">Subject: </b></span><span class="" style=""><b class="">[Maths-seminars] Joint 'Ada Lovelace day' Colloquium (with physics and comp sci)</b><br class="">
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<div class="" style="margin-top:0px; margin-right:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px">
<span class="" style=""><b class="">Date: </b></span><span class="" style="">2 October 2015 12:16:22 BST<br class="">
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<span class="" style=""><b class="">To: </b></span><span class="" style="">Maths Seminar Annoncements <<a href="mailto:maths-seminars-announce@lists.nottingham.ac.uk" class="">maths-seminars-announce@lists.nottingham.ac.uk</a>><br class="">
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<div class="">Dear all,<br class="">
<br class="">
on Thu 15 October we will have an 'Ada Lovelace Day'<br class="">
with a colloqium on 'The future of Proof' by Prof Ursula Martin<br class="">
(Oxford) at 4pm in<br class="">
in room B13 (Physics Building). Before the colloqium at 2pm Suw<br class="">
Charman-Anderson will give the talk 'Ada Lovelace:<br class="">
Victorian Computing Visionary' in Keighton Auditorium. Please find<br class="">
abstracts of both below -- and a poster attached.<br class="">
<br class="">
best wishes, Sven<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
The future of proof: will we need people in the age of computers?<br class="">
<br class="">
Prof. Ursula Martin<br class="">
<br class="">
In the summer of 2014 mathematician Tom Hales announced his proof of the<br class="">
400 year old Kepler conjecture, a result that says, essentially, that the<br class="">
most efficient way of packing cannon balls (or oranges) into a box is the<br class="">
obvious one. What was remarkable about Hales's proof was that every step<br class="">
had been written in formal logic and checked line by line by a computer -<br class="">
using software more usually used to show that complex computer programs<br class="">
are free from bugs. Hales had previously announced a proof in 1998, but<br class="">
his paper had been rejected by a top journal because the referees did not<br class="">
feel able to trust the complex calculations involved.<br class="">
<br class="">
The Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles, who proved Fermat's conjecture,<br class="">
famously described mathematical research as being like "stumbling around<br class="">
in the dark" - eventually the light comes on, and you see the way<br class="">
forward, only to move on to the next problem, and more stumbling around in the dark.<br class="">
<br class="">
Yet mathematicians like Wiles, and Hales, do solve immensely hard<br class="">
problems, ones where computers would even now be able to make very little<br class="">
progress. We'll try and unpick the challenge of understanding the amazing<br class="">
things human mathematicians do, and how to best harness the combination<br class="">
of human skill and computer power to improve the process of producing<br class="">
mathematics, with people doing what people do best, and the computers<br class="">
taking care of checking all the details.<br class="">
<br class="">
Biography<br class="">
Ursula Martin CBE is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of<br class="">
Oxford. After a PhD in mathematics at Warwick, she held positions at the<br class="">
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Manchester,<br class="">
and Royal Holloway University of London. She was the first female<br class="">
professor in any discipline at the University of St Andrews, and held the<br class="">
Chair of Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London, before<br class="">
moving to Oxford in 2014. Prof Martin is a Fellow of the Institution of<br class="">
Engineering and Technology, of the Institute of Mathematics and its<br class="">
Applications, and of the British Computer Society. She has served on<br class="">
several governmental boards and panels, and was a member of the UK<br class="">
Defence Science Advisory Council. Her main scientific contributions have<br class="">
been in theoretical computer science and formal methods; in 2012, she was<br class="">
appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to<br class="">
computer science.<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
Ada Lovelace: Victorian Computing Visionary<br class="">
In 2009, Suw Charman-Anderson founded of Ada Lovelace Day, an<br class="">
international celebration of the achievements of women in science,<br class="">
technology, engineering and maths. With grassroots events held around the<br class="">
world and thousands of people writing and talking about the women who<br class="">
have inspired them, the day seeks to raise women's profiles and highlight<br class="">
unsung heroines.<br class="">
Suw will talk about why there's a need for such a day, and also about Ada<br class="">
Lovelace herself. Lauded as the first ever computer programmer, Ada was a<br class="">
gifted mathematician, yet today she faces challenges from many voices as<br class="">
to the veracity of her contributions to computer science. So who was Ada?<br class="">
And what do we know about her work on Charles Babbage's Analytical<br class="">
Engine?<br class="">
Before focusing full-time on Ada Lovelace Day, Suw was a social<br class="">
technologist and, as one of the UK's social media pioneers, worked with<br class="">
clients worldwide. A freelance journalist, she has written about social<br class="">
media and technology for The Guardian, CIO Magazine and others.<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
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