Julio: Big Conference for Young Mathematicians

Here's an event that will take place at the University of Bristol on 2nd April 2012:

Young Researchers in Mathematics Conference 2012.

The Young Researchers in Mathematics Conference is an annual event that aims to involve post-graduate and post-doctoral students at every level. It is a chance to meet and discuss research and ideas with other students from across the country. The conference spans a wide variety of disciplines arranged into tracks, each of which includes a keynote speaker and contributed talks by young researchers. There will also be plenary lectures of interest to the entire audience. For a full list of tracks and keynote speakers, please visit the conference website.

Starts: 11:00am on 2nd April 2012
Finishes: 4th April 2012
Venue: Queen's Building on University Walk, University of Bristol.

Julio: Student Experience: Or Why Study Mathematics at the University of Bristol?

My intention in this post is to comment and present some of my experiences and my own visions of the Department of Mathematics of the University of Bristol.

When I arrived at the Department of Mathematics here in Bristol for the first time, I was very well received by the staff and especially by my supervisors Jon Keating and Nina Snaith, they present me the department and gave me a warm welcome.

The math department in Bristol definitely is worldwide known, and with leaders in various areas of research. For example in my case, I work with number theory and the department have researchers at the highest level in number theory and related areas. I'm lucky to be part of the number theory and quantum chaos groups here in Bristol.

But the areas of research here in the department of Bristol not only restrict to the number theory and if you take a look on the website about research groups in the department you may notice that there is research in several areas of mathematics such that Pure mathematics (such as research in analysis, partial differential equations, dynamical systems, algebra and others), Applied Mathematics (random matrix theory, quantum chaos, statistical mechanics, quantum information and others) and Statistics (Applied Probability, Monte Carlo, behavioural biology and others). So research in mathematics at the University of Bristol is vivid and very varied.

The courses offered are varied and change each year ranging from undergraduate level units up to advanced graduate courses. The Postgraduate courses and the department of mathematics is part of the TCC along with other universities (University of Bath, Imperial College, University of Oxford and the University of Warwick) which offer advanced courses in specific mathematical subjects. I can say that these courses are very useful for the mathematical training of anyone involved in any area of ​​mathematics.

I am enjoying my course and have been learning many new things every day. The Mathematics Department is very well structured with good rooms, seminar rooms, teaching rooms, computer lab rooms and many excellent lecturers. The professors here are very friendly and always ready to help. Studying in Bristol has been a priceless experience for me and I'm sure it will enormously contribute to my career as a mathematician and to my personal life.

The University of Bristol is very well located in the city of Bristol and this is amazing, since everything is quite close to the University. Bristol is a very nice city, probably one of the best places invUK. It's got all the good things the big city has, and yet it is a calm and safe place and is close from London. The city has good train and coach stations and even an airport where you can not catch only direct flights to other cities in the UK, but also to many other cities.

I highly recommend to my friends in Brazil to apply and come to study here, I guarantee you will be a unique experience and very rewarding academically, professionally and personally.

Coming soon: Review of the Oddest Titled Book of the Year!

I've been poorly this week so no lab time... but the exciting news is that I have been awarded an Arts Council grant to work on a collection of biology-inspired short stories. I will be embedding in one or two more labs, too, that are engaged in biology-related research, to inspire my writing, and will report on that as it happens.

In the meantime, I received this gorgeous-looking book in the post last week and will be reviewing it here shortly. It is Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes, by Daina Tamina, a maths professor at Cornell University, who I also hope to interview. How did I find this book? I saw the announcement that it had won the Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year! Yup, that makes sense. More on maths and yarn soon.